MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. (AP) — An Indiana man convicted of killing his brother and three other men in 1997 was scheduled to receive a lethal injection early Wednesday without an independent witness present in the state’s first execution in 15 years was who could protect him under the state’s laws information on the death penalty.

Joseph Corcoran, 49, has been on death row since 1999, the year he was convicted in the shooting deaths of his brother James Corcoran, 30; his sister’s fiancé, Robert Scott Turner, 32; and two other men: Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell, 30.

Unless Gov. Eric Holcomb intervenes, Corcoran is scheduled to be executed before sunrise Wednesday at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Holcomb’s office did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press late Tuesday evening asking whether he might commute Corcoran’s death sentence.

Holcomb recently said he would allow the legal process to play out before deciding whether to intervene. And late Tuesday, Corcoran’s options with the courts ended when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his lawyers’ request to stop his execution.

Last summer, the governor announced the resumption of state executions after a years-long pause marked by a nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs.

According to a recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center, Indiana and Wyoming are the only two states that do not allow members of the media to attend state executions.

Indiana has provided few details about the process. Prison officials provided only photos of the execution chamber, which resembles a sparse operating room with a gurney, bright fluorescent lighting and an adjacent observation room.

Corcoran’s lawyers have been fighting the death penalty for years, arguing he is severely mentally ill, which affects his ability to understand and make decisions. Corcoran exhausted his federal appeals in 2016, and this month his lawyers asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution, but the request was denied.

Corcoran’s lawyers last week asked the U.S. District Court for Northern Indiana to stop his execution and hold a hearing to decide whether it would be unconstitutional because Corcoran suffers from serious mental illness. The court declined to intervene Friday, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did the same on Tuesday.

Corcoran’s lawyers then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and issue an emergency order staying his execution, but the high court denied their request for a stay.

According to court documents, before he shot the men in July 1997, Corcoran was stressed because his sister’s impending marriage to Turner would require him to move out of the Fort Wayne home he shared with her and his brother.

Corcoran awoke to hear his brother and others talking about him downstairs, loaded his rifle and then shot all four, records show. Corcoran reportedly bragged in prison about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in Steuben County in northern Indiana. He was tried for her murders but acquitted.

The last state execution in Indiana was in 2009, when Matthew Wrinkles was put to death for killing his wife, her brother and sister-in-law in 1994.

Since then, 13 executions have been carried out in Indiana, but they were initiated and carried out by federal officials at a federal prison in Terre Haute in 2020 and 2021.

State officials said they could not continue executions because a combination of drugs used in lethal injections was no longer available.

There has been a nationwide shortage for years because pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell their products for this purpose. That has led states, including Indiana, to turn to compounding pharmacies that make drugs specifically for a customer. Some use more accessible medications such as the sedatives pentobarbital or midazolam – both of which critics say can cause severe pain.

Indiana planned to use pentobarbital to execute Corcoran and, like many states, refuses to reveal the drug’s origin. When asked for details, the Indiana Department of Corrections pointed The Associated Press to a state law that designates the source of lethal injection drugs as confidential.

Religious groups, disability rights advocates and others have spoken out against his execution. About a dozen people, some carrying candles, held a vigil late Tuesday to pray outside the prison, which is surrounded by barbed wire fences in a residential area about 60 miles (90 kilometers) east of Chicago.

“We can build a society without giving government authorities the right to execute their own citizens,” said Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary, who led the prayers.

Other opponents of the death penalty also demonstrated in front of the prison on Tuesday evening. Some held signs reading “Execution is not the solution” and “Remember the victims, but not more killings.”

“There is no need or benefit from this execution. This is all a show,” said Abraham Borowitz, director of Death Penalty Action, his organization that protests every execution in the United States

Prison officials said in a brief statement Tuesday evening that Corcoran “requested Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for his last meal.”

Corcoran said goodbye late Tuesday to his relatives, including his wife, Tahina Corcoran, who told reporters outside the prison that they discussed their faith and memories, including attending school together. She repeated her request to the governor of Indiana to commute her husband’s death sentence.

Tahina Corcoran said her husband is “very mentally ill” and she doesn’t believe he fully understands what is happening to him.

“He is in shock. He doesn’t understand,” she said.

One of Corcoran’s sisters, Kelly Ernst, who lost both a brother and her fiancé in the 1997 shootings, said she believes the death penalty should be abolished and executing her brother will solve nothing.

“I am at a loss for words. I’m just really upset that they’re doing it right before Christmas,” she said. “My sister and I have a birthday in December. I mean, it just feels like it’s going to ruin Christmas for the rest of our lives.”