An Indiana man convicted decades ago of killing four people, including his brother and his sister’s fiancé, was executed early Wednesday. This was the first execution in the state in 15 years.

Joseph Corcoran, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:44 a.m. CST at the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana, the Indiana Department of Corrections said in a statement. Corcoran was to be executed with the powerful sedative pentobarbital. It was the 24th execution in the US this year.

Under state law, media witnesses were not allowed, but Corcoran chose a reporter from the Indiana Capital Chronicle as one of his witnesses, the magazine’s editor posted on X early Wednesday.

Four people watched the execution through a one-way window in a small side room, said Corcoran’s attorney Larry Komp. The death lasted eight minutes, said Komp, who said he had only partial vision and could not hear anything. According to the state, Corcoran’s last words were: “Not really. Let’s get this over with.”

Komp said “there was no way to tell” whether Corcoran was in pain.

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.

According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, witnesses to the execution were only allowed to watch for six minutes before the blinds to the auditorium were closed. Corcoran, whose priest was allowed to be in the room with him during the execution, “appeared awake with blinking eyes but otherwise still and quiet,” the newspaper said.

Corcoran was convicted in July 1997 when his brother, 30-year-old James Corcoran, his sister’s fiancé, 32-year-old Robert Scott Turner, and two other men, Timothy G. Bricker, 30, and Douglas A. Stillwell , 30, were shot.

While in prison for those murders, Corcoran reportedly bragged about fatally shooting his parents in 1992 in Steuben County in northern Indiana. He was tried for her murders but acquitted.

Last summer, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced plans to resume state executions after a years-long pause marked by a nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs.

Corcoran’s lawyers had fought his death penalty for years, arguing he was severely mentally ill, which affected his ability to understand and make decisions. This month, his lawyers asked the Indiana Supreme Court to stop his execution, but the request was denied.

Komp said the question of Corcoran’s mental health was not properly assessed.

“There has never been a hearing to determine whether he is fit to be executed,” he said in a statement to the Associated Press. “It is an absolute failure of the rule of law to carry out an execution when the law and due process have not been followed.”

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 by federal officials and carried out in 2020 and 2021 at a federal prison in Terre Haute.

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 km) 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.

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

Tahina Corcoran said her husband was “very mentally ill” and she didn’t believe he fully understood what was happening to him.

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