Roy Lee Ward JUST Executed in Indiana | Final Meal & Last Words. –
On October 10th, 2025, after more than 23 years on death row, justice was finally served. Roy Lee Ward was executed by lethal injection at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. In this video, we will reveal what happened that day, his final hours, what his final meal was, and what his final words were. Welcome to Deadline Files.
Ward’s execution began just after midnight at 12:33 a.m. Central time. He was pronounced dead. But the story of how he ended up in that execution chamber is one of the most brutal and heartbreaking cases Indiana has ever seen. This is the complete story of Roy Lee Ward and the crime that sealed his fate.
July 11th, 2001. Dale, Indiana. A town so small that everyone knows everyone. Population barely 1,500 people. The kind of place where doors are left unlocked and neighbors trust each other. That trust was shattered on this summer day. 15-year-old Stacy Payne was home alone. An honoral student, a cheerleader, the kind of teenager every parent dreams of raising.
She had her whole life ahead of her. College plans, dreams, a future that seemed bright and limitless. Roy Lee Ward knocked on her door. He used a lie to get inside. False pretenses. The moment Stacy opened that door, her fate was sealed. What happened next was so violent, so brutal that it would haunt this small community for decades.
Ward attacked her with a knife. But that wasn’t enough. He also used a heavy dumbbell. The attack was savage, relentless. Stacy was sexually assaulted. She fought for her life, but Ward was too strong, too determined, too evil. When police arrived at the scene, they found Ward still there, still holding the knife, blood everywhere.
Stacy was alive, but barely. She was rushed to the hospital, fighting for every breath. But her injuries were too severe. Later that day, Stacy Payne died. She was only 15 years old. Ward was arrested immediately. There was no chase, no dramatic standoff. He was caught red-handed at the scene of his horrific crime.
The evidence against him was overwhelming. But that was just the beginning of a legal battle that would span more than two decades. October 2002, more than a year after Stacy’s murder, Roy Lee Ward finally went on trial. The prosecution laid out their case with methodical precision. The evidence was damning. DNA, witnesses, the fact that he was caught at the scene holding the murder weapon.
The jury didn’t need long to deliberate guilty on all counts. But this wasn’t just a murder conviction. The jury had to decide whether Ward deserved the ultimate punishment. Should he spend life in prison or should he face death? They considered the brutality of the crime, the age of the victim, the sexual assault, the premeditation, their decision, death.
In December 2002, the judge formally imposed the death sentence. Stacy Payne’s family finally had their verdict. Justice they thought had been served, but the legal system had other plans. Two years later in 2004, the Indiana Supreme Court dropped a bombshell. They overturned Ward’s conviction and death sentence. Not because he was innocent, not because the evidence was flawed, but because of publicity.
The case had generated intense media coverage in Spencer County. News trucks, reporters, front page headlines. The Supreme Court ruled that this level of publicity made it impossible for Ward to get a fair trial in that venue. They ordered a new trial in a different county. Stacy’s family was devastated. They would have to go through the entire ordeal again, relive the horror, face Ward in court once more.
In 2007, 5 years after the first trial, Ward was retrieded in a different Indiana county. This time things went differently. Ward’s legal team knew the evidence was insurmountable. They knew what the jury had decided the first time. So instead of contesting guilt, Ward entered a guilty plea, accepting full responsibility for the crime. It was a strategic move, but it didn’t save him.
The jury still had to decide his sentence. And once again, after hearing the details of what he did to Stacy Payne, their decision was unanimous. The jury once again recommended the death penalty. For the second time, Roy Lee Ward was sentenced to die for his crimes. But sentencing someone to death and actually carrying out that sentence are two very different things.
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Ward’s legal team immediately began filing appeals one after another after another. State courts reviewed his case. Federal courts examined every detail. Ward’s attorneys argued procedural issues, constitutional violations, mental health factors, anything and everything that might save their client’s life. Every appeal was denied.
Every court that reviewed the case came to the same conclusion. Roy Lee Ward had received a fair trial. The evidence was solid. The sentence was justified. In 2017, Ward’s legal team made their final move. They petitioned the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
If the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, Ward might have a chance. If they declined, his options were exhausted. The Supreme Court declined. Ward’s death sentence was now final. But there was still one more hurdle. Indiana’s lethal injection protocol itself faced legal challenges. Ward’s attorneys argued that the method of execution was unconstitutional, that it violated the ETH amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
In 2018, that challenge was also rejected. Roy Lee Ward had run out of legal options. All that remained was the wait for an execution date. Death row is not a quick path to execution. Some inmates wait decades. During those years, Ward lived in a small cell at Indiana State Prison, 23 hours a day in confinement, 1 hour of recreation, limited human contact, a monotonous existence of waiting to die.
But Indiana’s death penalty had its own complications. The state had stopped carrying out executions for years. A combination of legal challenges, drug shortages, and political considerations had created an unofficial moratorum. Death row inmates continued to arrive, but no one was being executed. That changed in 2025.
Indiana announced it was resuming executions after its long hiatus, and Roy Lee Ward was near the top of the list. His appeals were exhausted. His conviction was solid. All the legal requirements had been met. The state set his execution date, October 10th, 2025. One final avenue remained clemency. Ward could petition the governor for mercy.
The Indiana parole board would review his case and make a recommendation. Then, Governor Mike Braw would make the final decision. In September 2025, the parole board held Ward’s clemency hearing. This was his last chance to present arguments for why his life should be spared. Ward’s attorneys made their case.
They revealed that he had recently been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. They argued this affected his communication and behavior. They noted that Ward had expressed remorse, that he had accepted responsibility for his crime. Roy is a person filled with remorse. He is a person filled with sadness. Roy is filled with self-loathing.
He is filled with shame. These are not the sentiments and the expressions that you hear from a psychopath. These are not the characteristics of a psychopath. Ward himself chose not to speak directly to the board. His reasoning was striking. He didn’t want to force Stacy Payne’s family to travel just to hear him speak.
Even at this final stage, he seemed to understand the pain his presence caused them. But the Payne family did appear, and they had plenty to say. Julie Winninger, Stacy’s mother, stood before the parole board. More than 24 years had passed since her daughter’s murder. More than 8,800 days, but the pain was still raw, still present, still overwhelming.
She urged the board to show no mercy to her daughter’s k!ller. She spoke of family gatherings that felt incomplete, holidays that were reminders of loss, birthdays that would never be celebrated, a daughter who would never graduate, never marry, never have children of her own, 8,839 days of emotional devastation. She said that’s how long they had been living with this loss.
That’s how long they had been waiting for justice to finally be carried out. The family remembered Stacy as she was vibrant, intelligent, full of potential. An honor student who made them proud. A cheerleader who brought joy to the stands. A daughter whose life mattered deeply and whose absence left a void that could never be filled.
I cannot imagine the immense pain, suffering, and sheer terror that Stacy experienced during the last moments of her young life as she was completely conscious during the attack. Ward is pure evil. This monster had the audacity to try and wash Stacy’s blood off his hands in her kitchen sink while she lied bleeding on the floor next to him.
He coldly and brutally took Stacy’s life with unforgiving and unimaginable evil. And what he did to our little girl is too unspeakable to even put into words, but burned into our memories. The parole board listened to both sides. Ward’s attorneys pleading for mercy. The Payne family demanding justice. Their decision was unanimous. No clemency.
They recommended that the execution proceed as scheduled. The decision now rested with Governor Mike Braw. He reviewed the case file, the crime, the trials, the appeals, the clemency hearing testimony. His decision, clemency, denied. The final obstacle to Ward’s execution had been removed. October 10th, 2025 would be the day justice was finally served.
October 9th, 2025. Roy Lee Ward’s last full day alive. Death row inmates facing execution are moved to a holding cell near the execution chamber. Ward spent his final hours in this small space, separated from the other prisoners. He was allowed to request a final meal. Many condemned prisoners make simple requests. A burger, pizza, comfort food from their childhood. Ward’s request was extensive.
He ordered from Texas Corral, a local restaurant. The menu. A hamburger, a steak melt, French fries, a baked potato with butter, a dozen fried shrimp, a sweet potato, chicken alfredo, and bread sticks. It was a feast. Perhaps an attempt to taste everything one last time. To experience flavors and satisfaction before the end, or maybe just the randomness of a man trying to find meaning in his final hours.
Ward also spent time with his spiritual adviser, Deacon Brian Nosbush. The two men had formed a relationship during Ward’s years on death row. Nose Bush had counseledled him, prayed with him, and now would be with him during his final moments. Ward wrote out a final statement, his last words to the world, but he chose not to speak them himself.
Instead, he asked Nosbush to read them aloud after the execution began. As midnight approached, Ward was prepared for the execution. He was led into the execution chamber, a small room with a gurnie in the center. Witnesses sat behind glass windows. The Payne family was there, media representatives, prison officials.
Ward was strapped to the gurnie as medical staff prepared the procedure. Intravenous lines were placed in his arms and the lethal injection process was set to begin. At 12:00 a.m., the warden asked if Ward had any final words. Ward’s response was brief and cryptic. Brian is going to read them. Those were his last spoken words.
Not an apology, not a plea, just a reference to the statement he had prepared. The statement he was too afraid or unable to deliver himself. The execution began. The first drug was administered. Medazzelm, a sedative designed to render Ward unconscious. Then came the paralytic agent, stopping his breathing. Finally, potassium chloride to stop his heart. At 12:33 a.m.
Central time, Roy Lee Ward was pronounced dead. The execution had taken 33 minutes from start to finish. After 23 years on death row, his sentence had finally been carried out. As promised, Deacon Brian Nose Bush read Ward’s prepared statement aloud. The words Ward couldn’t or wouldn’t speak himself. Ward expressed deep remorse.
He apologized to the pain family for the unimaginable pain he had caused. He acknowledged that no words could undo what he had done. I wish I could go back and change things, but I can’t. The statement read, “I hope my execution gives Stacy’s family some peace.” He apologized to his own family for the hurt and shame he had brought them.
He thanked his supporters for standing by him through the years of appeals and waiting. It was an attempt at accountability, a recognition of the suffering he had caused. Whether it was genuine remorse or simply the words expected of a condemned man, only Ward knew. For the Pain family, the words likely meant little. No apology could bring Stacy back.
No expression of remorse could erase 24 years of grief. But the execution itself represented closure. The end of a legal saga that had dragged on for more than two decades. 23 years. That’s how long Roy Lee Ward lived after k!lling Stacy Payne. She was dead at 15. He died at 53. He had 38 more years of life than she did.
years of breathing, eating, sleeping, existing. Critics of the death penalty often point to cases like wards as evidence the system is broken. Two trials, countless appeals, multiple court reviews, years and years of legal proceedings, all while the victim’s family waits, and wonders if justice will ever truly be served. But supporters argue this is how the system is supposed to work.
Multiple layers of review, ensuring no innocent person is executed, making absolutely certain the verdict is correct and the punishment is appropriate. In Ward’s case, every court that reviewed the evidence came to the same conclusion. He was guilty. The evidence was overwhelming. The sentence was justified.
The execution of Roy Lee Ward marked the end of Indiana’s long hiatus from capital punishment. The state had finally resumed carrying out death sentences. Other inmates on death row now knew their sentences might actually be carried out. For the town of Dale, Indiana, the execution brought a measure of closure. The case had hung over the community for more than two decades.
Stacy Payne would have been 39 years old in 2025. If she had lived, she might have had a career, a family, children of her own. She might have been a teacher or a nurse or followed whatever dreams that 15-year-old girl held in her heart. Instead, her life ended in violence. Her potential was erased. Her family was left with memories and grief.
Roy Lee Ward’s execution didn’t bring Stacy back. It didn’t undo the trauma her family endured. It didn’t erase the fear that spread through Dale, Indiana on that July day in 2001. But it did represent accountability. A man who committed a brutal crime faced the ultimate consequence. A jury of his peers, not once but twice, determined he deserved to die for what he did. At 12:33 a.m.
on October 10th, 2025, that sentence was carried out. Roy Lee Ward was gone. The case was closed.
She gave descriptions. She fought back in the only way she could by making sure authorities knew exactly who had hurt her. In December 1998, police arrested Bible in Florida. At first, they only connected him to the Louisiana rape. But during interrogation, something remarkable happened. Danny Bible started confessing.
He confessed to the Louisiana rape. Then he confessed to murdering Inz Deon 19 years earlier. Then he confessed to the 1983 triple murder in Texas. The confessions kept coming, connecting dots that investigators had been trying to connect for decades. The ice pick k!ller finally had a name and a face. Louisiana moved first.
Bible pleaded guilty to aggravated rape and received life in prison without parole. But Texas wanted him for capital murder and Texas had the death penalty. In 2003, Harris County prosecutors put Danny Bible on trial for the murder of Inz Deedon. They didn’t just present evidence about that single k!lling.
They laid out his entire criminal history for the jury, the other murders, the rape of an 11-year old child in Montana, the sexual assault of his own nieces, the decades of violence and terror. The jury heard it all. They saw who Danny Bible really was. And after deliberating for just 3 hours, they sentenced him to death. Harris County District Attorney Kim OG, who later became known for reducing the county’s use of capital punishment, had no hesitation about Bible’s case.
She called him the worst of the worst. Some crimes she believed demanded the ultimate penalty. Danny Bible’s crimes were among them. By 2018, Bible had been on death row for 15 years. He was now 66 years old, wheelchairbound, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and heart problems. His body was failing him. His veins were weak and compromised.
He shook uncontrollably from tremors. His attorneys saw an opportunity. They argued that executing Bible by lethal injection would be cruel and unusual punishment. Prison technicians might not be able to find a suitable vein for the IV line. Lying flat on the gurnie could cause breathing distress.
The execution could be botched, turning into a prolonged torture session. They cited cases from other states where execution teams had failed to find veins in sick inmates leading to aborted executions. They warned that Bible’s execution could turn into a nightmare. Then they made an unprecedented proposal.
Execute Bible by firing squad or nitrogen gas instead of lethal injection. These methods weren’t authorized under Texas law. But the defense argued they would be more humane given Bible’s condition. Texas prosecutors weren’t buying it. They insisted Bible’s health issues were being exaggerated as a delay tactic. Medical staff had drawn blood from him before without problems.
Texas had a long history of successful executions. This would be no different. The courts agreed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied his appeal. The board of pardons and parrolles unanimously rejected clemency 2 days before the scheduled execution. On June 27th, 2018, Bible’s lawyers made one final desperate attempt, filing appeals all the way to the US Supreme Court.
About an hour before the execution was scheduled to begin, the Supreme Court rejected the final appeal. There would be no lastm minute stay, no reprieve. After nearly 40 years, Danny Bible was about to answer for what he had done. Prison policy in Texas changed in 2011, eliminating special last meal requests. So, Bible didn’t get to choose his final dinner.
Instead, he ate what every other inmate on the unit ate that day. breaded chicken patty, sweet potatoes, cornbread, macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, biscuits with country gravy, and a sugar cookie bar. He washed it down with whatever beverage was offered, probably iced tea or punch. It was ordinary food on an extraordinary day, the last meal he would ever eat.
As evening approached, witnesses began gathering. victims families arrived, including Larry Lance, brother of Pamela Hudgens. Media representatives took their positions behind the glass. Bible’s own family came too, his mother and several siblings there to watch their son and brother die. Outside the Huntsville unit, a small group of anti-death penalty protesters had assembled.
They shouted through megaphones, pleading for mercy, highlighting Bible’s age and failing health. Their voices echoed through the prison grounds, a last feudal attempt to stop what was about to happen. But inside the death chamber, preparations continued without pause. Because Bible couldn’t walk, prison staff wheeled him into the chamber in his wheelchair.
His body shook from Parkinson’s tremors, his head nodding involuntarily. They transferred him from the wheelchair to the gurnie, strapping him down carefully. Everyone watching knew what the defense attorneys had warned about. Would the execution team be able to find a vein? Would this turn into the botched execution Bible’s lawyers had predicted? The answer came within minutes.
The IV team worked quickly and efficiently, inserting needles into both of Bible’s hands rather than his arms. Within 10 minutes, they had both lines secured. The dire predictions had been wrong. At approximately 6:17 p.m., the warden asked Bible if he had any final words. No, sir, Bible replied simply. No apology to the families watching behind the glass.
No expression of remorse for the lives he had destroyed. No acknowledgement of the decades of pain he had caused. Just two words, “No, sir.” The lethal dose of pentobarbatl began flowing through the IV lines. Almost immediately, Bible’s demeanor changed. His eyes widened. His breathing became rapid and shallow. Then came the words that no one in that room would forget. It’s burning.
His voice quavered, barely above a whisper, but clearly audible in the silent chamber. It hurts. The drugs continued to flow. Bible groaned softly, then his eyes closed. Some witnesses said he snored briefly, a strange and unsettling sound. His chest rose and fell rapidly at first, then slower, then slower still. Within a minute, all movement stopped.
The tremors that had shaken his body for years finally ceased. Danny Paul Bible, the ice pick!ller, lay perfectly still on the gurnie. At 6:32 p.m., exactly 15 minutes after the drugs began flowing, a doctor checked for vital signs and found none. Danny Paul Bible was pronounced dead.
As Bible’s body lay on the gurnie, Larry Lance stepped forward to speak on behalf of the victim’s families. His words were harsh, unforgiving, and absolutely clear. Danny Paul Bible is as vile and evil a person as has ever drawn breath. We are glad to have witnessed him draw his last breath. I know he will burn in hell for eternity.
There was no sadness in his voice, no sympathy for the elderly man who had just died, only relief that Bible could never hurt anyone again, and satisfaction that justice had finally been served. Bible’s own family, who had watched everything unfold, said nothing to the media. They left the prison in silence, keeping their grief private.
Whatever they felt about losing their son and brother, they chose not to share it with the world. The execution had proceeded more smoothly than anyone expected. Despite all the warnings about Bible’s failing health, despite the legal battles over execution methods, despite the predictions of a botch procedure, it was over in 15 minutes.
No prolonged suffering beyond those initial moments. No technical difficulties, no drama. Danny Paul Bible was the seventh person executed in Texas in 2018. His death closed cases that had remained open for decades. Families who had waited nearly 40 years for justice finally got it, though the wait must have felt endless.
The execution also highlighted uncomfortable questions about the criminal justice system. Bible had been released from prison in 1992 after serving just 7 years for murder. If he had served his full sentence, how many lives would have been saved? How many rapes would never have happened? How many children would have been spared his attacks? There’s also the question of executing elderly, severely ill inmates.
Bible was 66, wheelchairbound, shaking from Parkinson’s disease. Some argued that executing him was cruel regardless of his crimes. Others countered that his victims, including a 4-month-old baby, never got to grow old at all. Bible lived decades longer than the lives he cut short. Harris County District Attorney Kimog, who had moved away from seeking the death penalty in most cases, made an exception for Bible.
She called him the worst of the worst. And few would argue with that assessment. And for the families who watched him take his last breath, that was enough. The ice pick!ller is dead. His victims are not forgotten. And his story serves as a grim reminder of how much damage one person can inflict and how long the road to justice can
