March 11, 2005

Indiana set to execute inmate
on March 10 for 1980 murders

By Mary Ann Wyand

Indiana Death Row inmate Donald Ray Wallace Jr. of Evansville, Ind., was scheduled to be executed by chemical injection on March 10 at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Ind., for the January 1980 murders of a Catholic family from Evansville.

Wallace admitted shooting St. Theresa parishioners Patrick and Theresa Gilligan and their children,
5-year-old Lisa and 4-year-old Gregory, after they returned home and interrupted a burglary. Wallace said he had used drugs at the time of the murders.

He has said he does not want to ask Gov. Mitch Daniels to commute his death sentence to life in prison without parole.

Wallace will be the 12th Death Row inmate to die since Indiana reinstated capital punishment in 1977.

The Message, the weekly Catholic newspaper in the Evansville Diocese, reported on March 4 that Father Ted Tempel, a former pastor at St. Theresa Parish, would preside during a memorial service at 6 p.m. on March 9 at the church.

The diocesan newspaper said Father Tempel planned to pray “for healing, forgiveness, comfort and strength,” and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for friends who supported relatives in their time of grief.

Acknowledging that the murders were heinous crimes, St. Susanna parishioner Karen Burkhart of Plainfield, the Indiana death penalty abolition coordinator for Amnesty International, said Church teachings on the death penalty state that life in prison without parole is appropriate punishment for capital cases.

“It’s not going to bring back the people that he killed and it’s not going to make our society any better,” Burkhart said. “We need to stop the killing.” †

 

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