On May 20th, 2025, Benjamin Richie was executed by lethal injection at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana. He was 45 years old. He had been on death row for over two decades, convicted of shooting and killing a police officer during a foot chase in the year 2000. In this video, we’re going to cover everything about this case.

 what led to the crime, the trial, the controversy that followed him all the way to his final hours. And yes, we will tell you exactly what his last meal was and the final words he spoke before he died. Stay with us. Before we get to the crime, you need to understand where Benjamin Richie came from. Benjamin Donnie Peoples was born on May 3rd, 1980 in Indiana.

 He never knew his biological father. His mother Mary Martin was reported to have abused alcohol and drugs, including during her pregnancy. She abandoned her son twice before he was even 3 years old. He was later taken in and raised under the name Richie. By the time he was a young child, he was already showing signs of serious developmental problems.

 He was diagnosed with ADHD in elementary school. He was prescribed rolin but didn’t always take it. He repeated the first grade. He was hospitalized at age 10. Records from that period note diagnoses of conduct disorder and depression. By 9th grade, he had dropped out of school entirely. He never earned a GED.

 In 1998, at just 18 years old, he was convicted of burglary. He served time. He was released. He was placed on probation. Two years later, everything fell apart. The night of September 29th, 2000, Benjamin Richie, then 20 years old, was with two accompllices. Together, they stole a white van from a local gas station in Beach Grove, Indiana, just outside of Indianapolis.

 Someone reported the theft. Police were notified. About 2 hours later, a Beach Grove officer named Matthew Hickeyi spotted the stolen van while he was responding to a separate traffic accident. He confirmed it over the radio. He gave chase. Two other officers joined the pursuit. Officer Robert Mercury and Officer William Ronald Tony.

The chase didn’t last long. The van pulled into the yard of a residential home. The doors flew open. Richie and one accomplice jumped out and ran in opposite directions. His accomplice, a 20-year-old named Michael Greer, was caught almost immediately by Officer Hickey. Richie kept running and Officer Tony ran after him.

 What happened next took only seconds. Richie turned around. He fired four shots at Officer Tony. One of them struck Tony just above his bulletproof vest. Officer William Tony collapsed at the scene. He did not survive. William Bill Tony was 31 years old. He had been with the Beach Grove Police Department for 2 years. Beach Grove was a small, tight-knit community of about 14,000 people.

 The department had roughly 30 officers. Bill Tony was the first officer in that department’s history to be killed by gunfire in the line of duty. He was married. He had two young daughters and on the night he was shot and killed. He died just hours before his 32nd birthday. Deputy Police Chief Tom Harl, who worked alongside him, later said every one of us involved, including Bill, had something stolen from them that they’ll never get back.

 His wife DD would carry that loss for the next 25 years through the trial, the appeals, the delays, and eventually to the execution itself. We’ll hear from her again later in this video. Richie was arrested and charged with the murder of Officer Tony along with autotheft, carrying an unlicensed firearm, and resisting arrest.

 The trial took place in 2002. On August 10th, 2002, the jury found Benjamin Richie guilty on all charges. During the penalty phase, his defense team argued that Richie suffered from mental disabilities caused either by a head injury or by his mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy. They argued his traumatic upbringing was not something he chose and that he deserved mercy. The prosecution pushed back.

 They told the jury that suffering and hardship doesn’t make someone a killer, that plenty of people endure difficult childhoods and never pick up a gun. The jury deliberated for more than 3 hours. On August 14th, 2002, they returned a unanimous verdict, death. On October 15th, 2002, Benjamin Richie, 22 years old, stood before Marian County Superior Court Judge Patricia Gford and was formally sentenced to death.

 Before the sentence was read, Officer Tony’s widow, DD Hin, stood up and delivered her victim impact statement directly to the man who had killed her husband. She told him she knew he wasn’t sorry. She called him a coward. She said she hoped he would be miserable for every remaining day of his life until the moment of his execution.

 And Benjamin Richie, he smiled. As the verdict was read, he smiled and reportedly laughed. That image stayed with Tony’s family for years. It became part of the story, something Richie himself would eventually reflect on with deep regret, but we’ll get to that. The two legal aggravating factors that made Richie eligible for the death penalty were first that he was already on probation at the time of the murder from his 1998 burglary conviction and second that officer Tony was acting in the lawful course of his duties when he was killed.

Richie was sent to Indiana State Prison and that’s where he would spend the next 23 years. Death row is a strange limbo. You know your sentence. You don’t always know when or if it will ever actually be carried out. For Benjamin Richie, that uncertainty lasted for over two decades. Indiana faced a significant problem.

 The state had run out of the drugs required to carry out lethal injections. Pharmaceutical companies had begun refusing to allow their products to be used in executions. Indiana’s last execution before this case had been in 2009. A 15-year pause followed. During those years, Richie remained in his cell.

 In 2005, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was also featured in a documentary series on the Indiana State Prison filmed by British journalist Sir Trevor Macdonald. And in 2024, it emerged that during his time on death row, Richie had developed a four-year relationship with a woman from Sweden who had reportedly fallen in love with him through correspondence.

 He was also, by most accounts, from those who knew him during those years, a changed man. Whether that mattered legally or morally would become the central question of his final years. In 2024, Indiana announced it had acquired Penttobarbatl, the drug needed to resume executions. The state moved quickly. On September 27th, 2024, Indiana Attorney General Todd Roita filed a motion with the Indiana Supreme Court to set an execution date for Benjamin Richie.

 At that point, Indiana’s death row held only eight people. four of them, including Richie, had exhausted all of their standard appeals. He was next in line after fellow death row inmate Joseph Corkran, who was executed on December 18th, 2024, ending the state’s 15-year pause on capital punishment. Richie’s legal team moved fast.

 They filed a motion arguing that his trial lawyers were ineffective for failing to present evidence that he had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, FASD. New medical experts said he likely suffered brain damage from prenatal exposure to alcohol and drugs, affecting his judgment and impulse control. A psychologist testified that his mental functioning at the time of the crime was closer to that of a child than an adult.

The claim wasn’t that he was innocent, but that the jury never heard this critical information when deciding his sentence. This is where the case gets complicated. On April 15th, 2025, the Indiana Supreme Court issued its ruling, divided. By a 4:1 vote, the court rejected Richie’s request for postconviction relief and formally set his execution date, May 20th, 2025.

 But that single dissenting vote came from Chief Justice Loretta Rush. She publicly questioned whether Richie’s lawyers failed to present crucial FASD evidence and argued it should be reviewed before setting an execution date. Although the court wasn’t unanimous, that division fueled opposition.

 Advocates said his brain damage should make him ineligible for the death penalty, while others argued justice had already been delayed long enough. Hearings, petitions, and vigils followed, highlighting a deep divide, all centered on a man many believed had changed since the crime. On May 5th, 2025, Benjamin Richie appeared before a five member panel of the Indiana Parole Board to make his case for clemency. He spoke quietly.

 He took responsibility. He told the board, “I’ve ruined my life and other people’s lives. And I’m so sorry for that night. You can’t take back what you did.” He also addressed the moment at sentencing that had haunted him. The moment he smiled and laughed in front of DD Hin, he said, “I wish I could go back to the day in court because that man’s wife deserved to say everything she needed to say to me.

” And that punk kid should have just kept his mouth shut and let her say whatever she needed to say. That was her right. That was his family’s right. A second hearing was held on May 12th. This time Tony’s family spoke. DD Hin built Tony’s widow address the board. She said, “It’s time. We’re all tired. It is time for this chapter of my story, our story to be closed.

 It’s time for us to remember Bill. To remember Bill’s life and not his death. On May 14th, 2025, the parole board voted unanimously to deny clemency. They cited over a dozen disciplinary violations during Richie’s time in prison, including threats of violence against others. Governor Mike Braun followed the board’s recommendation and declined to grant clemency.

 He offered no personal explanation. Richie’s legal team then took the fight to federal court. They appealed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals. They petitioned the US Supreme Court on the night of May 19th, 2025, hours before the scheduled execution. The US Supreme Court declined to intervene. Every door had closed. Richie’s attorneys spent several hours with him on Monday, May 19th.

 He had received visits from friends and family all weekend. People who loved him, people he had reconnected with during his years on death row. After his attorneys left around 6:00 p.m., he was allowed to make final phone calls. Outside the prison, roughly two dozen protesters gathered in the parking lot. clergy members, anti-death penalty advocates, and ordinary citizens.

 A Catholic priest led a rosary. The Delaware bell, a bell that has been rung outside more than a dozen executions across the country, echoed into the night. On the other side of the gathering, supporters of Officer Tony held their own vigil. Two groups, one night, one outcome. Shortly after midnight on May 20th, 2025, Benjamin Richie was brought into the execution chamber at Indiana State Prison.

 He was 45 years old for his final meal. Benjamin Richie chose the tour of Italy from Olive Garden. It’s one of the chains signature dishes, a combination plate featuring chicken parmesana, lasagna classicalico, and fetuccini alfredo. A simple choice, familiar, comforting, the kind of meal you might order on a Friday night with your family.

 He ate it alone in a cell hours before his death. The lethal injection process began shortly after 1201 a.m. Richie was administered a single drug, Penttobarbatl. The source of the drug was not disclosed. Indiana had paid $900,000 to acquire its supply of execution drugs, but officials refused to release details on the quantity or origin.

 Under Indiana law, Richie was permitted five personal witnesses. His attorney, Steve Shy, was among them. No media were present. Indiana is one of only two states in the country that bars journalists from witnessing executions. The other is Wyoming. The Associated Press and four other news organizations had filed a federal lawsuit just weeks earlier, arguing that banning the press violated the First Amendment.

 A judge denied that request days before the execution took place. So, what the public knows about those final minutes comes exclusively from Richie’s own witnesses. And what they described was disturbing. Steve Shy told reporters that shortly after the drugs began to flow, Richie suddenly and violently lifted his head and shoulders off the gurnie.

 He twitched for approximately 3 seconds. Then he slowly relaxed back down. Two other witnesses in the room gave similar accounts. He violently sat up, raised his shoulders, and twitched violently for about 3 seconds. Shy said he didn’t collapse back down. It looked like he just kind of relaxed back down and had no movement for another couple of minutes and then they closed the curtains. Dr.

 Jonathan Groner, an ameritus clinical professor of surgery at Ohio State University, who has studied executions extensively, was clear that’s not what is supposed to happen when pentobarbatl is administered. He raised concerns about the unknown age and storage conditions of the drug and about whether the intravenous lines were properly placed.

If the drug gets under the skin instead of in the vein, it can definitely burn, Groner said. He called for a thorough autopsy. Indiana does not require an autopsy after an execution. One has not been publicly confirmed. The Indiana Department of Correction disputed all of it. An IDOC spokesperson said the attorney’s account is not an accurate description of the circumstances and that Richie’s execution was completed according to protocol.

 No independent witness was present to resolve the contradiction. Benjamin Richie was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m. on May 20th, 2025. Before the process began, Benjamin Richie was asked if he had any final words. He did. He said, “I love my family, my friends, and all the support I’ve gotten. I hope they all find peace.” That was it.

 No denial, no anger, no final proclamation, just love, and a hope for peace. When it was over, the reactions came quickly. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said the execution honored officer Tony’s sacrifice to the community. Beach Grove Police Chief Michael Maurice said, “While there is no peace in the execution, there is comfort in the realization that society has kept its promise to the men and women of law enforcement.

” Deputy State Public Defender Marco Sulka, one of Richie’s attorneys, responded with grief. Tonight was the result of prioritizing finality over fairness. Indiana executed a man with profound brain damage and developmental disabilities. Defense attorney Steve Shudy, who had just watched his client die, said simply, “This is a foolish, senseless, agonizing waste of time and money.

 He was no longer the same person who committed that crime.” And far away from the politics and the press statements, somewhere there were two daughters who grew up without a father. And somewhere there were people who had loved Benjamin Richie, now mourning his death. This case sits at the intersection of some of the hardest questions in criminal justice.

 What do we do with people who commit terrible acts, but whose brains from before they were even born may have been working against them? Does transformation matter? Does remorse matter? Does it change what justice requires? Officer William Tony was 31 years old. He had two daughters. He died hours before his birthday doing his job in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

Benjamin Richie spent 25 years on death row. Long enough to become, by many accounts, a genuinely different person. long enough to understand the weight of what he had done. A young officer who never came home. A man executed before sunrise on a Tuesday morning in May. And a system doing what systems do, moving toward a conclusion, regardless of the complexity in between.