Indiana set to execute man who killed officer; family ‘needs closure,’ but lawyers say it’s unjust

Beech Grove police officer William “Bill” Toney wasn’t supposed to be on the clock that Friday night in September 2000.

It was a cool, autumn day in the south Indianapolis suburb. At home, Toney had just finished dinner with his wife, Dee Dee, and close friends — a weekly tradition.

They lingered for a while afterward, watching Jeopardy before Toney headed into work.

Friends said Toney had agreed to a favor — covering the final hour of a fellow officer’s shift so the colleague could leave town early for a family trip. Toney didn’t have to go in, “but he was selfless,” recalled Robert Mercuri, who was a sergeant and supervisor in charge on the night of the killing.

“Bill was the kind of police officer that everyone always describes when they say, ‘This is how we want our police officers to be like,” he said.

As Toney got dressed for duty, Dee Dee helped tuck in his shirt, like she always did.

“He had to be perfect — he was a neat freak,” said Jeff Horen, Dee Dee’s brother-in-law, and a close friend of Toney’s. “Everything had to be done just right. He put towels down on his floor mats in his car to keep his floor mats perfect. He cared about doing things the right way.”

Just hours before Toney’s 32nd birthday, a call came in about a white Chevy Astro van, stolen from a gas station in Beech Grove.

Around 9:30 p.m. Sept. 29, he joined two fellow officers in the pursuit and chased the van until it crashed in a residential neighborhood at the 700 block of Churchman Avenue

When the van crashed and two suspects fled, Toney pursued one — 20-year-old Benjamin Ritchie — through a dark maze of houses and fences.

Minutes into the chase, Ritchie stopped running, cornered in a backyard on Fletcher Lane. He crouched behind a house and waited for Toney to clear a fence. He fired four times as the officer came into view.

One bullet missed Toney’s bullet-proof vest by an inch, striking the officer in the lower neck. Toney was able to return fire once but missed Ritchie.

A nearby homeowner who sat alongside the mortally-wounded officer while awaiting help later recalled in court that Toney — who could not speak — twirled his wedding band in his fingers as he took his last breaths.

“I found my friend Bill lying on the ground in that backyard. I attempted CPR. I rode with him in the ambulance … praying the entire time that he would survive,” said Mercuri, who was involved in the initial vehicle pursuit and was among the first to render aid after the shooting. “But my experience told me he was already gone.”

The officer was later pronounced dead at Wishard Memorial Hospital.

“Instead of being able to plan for a birthday celebration for Bill, due to the cowardly acts of a selfish punk, Dee Dee was planning Bill’s funeral,” said Molly Winters, herself a widow of a fallen Muncie police officer and a longtime leader and advocate within Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS), a national nonprofit that supports families and coworkers of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.

Ritchie, who was on probation for burglary, was arrested in a nearby house several hours later after a search that involved more than 100 officers from multiple agencies. He was charged with murder, car theft and resisting law enforcement, among other charges. On Oct. 15, 2002, he was sentenced to death.

Nearly 25 years after the killing, the state is hours away from carrying out Ritchie’s death sentence. He’s scheduled to be executed by lethal injection just after midnight Tuesday.

Republican Gov. Mike Braun, following a unanimous recommendation from Indiana’s Parole Board, rejected the inmate’s clemency plea last week.

“If we as a society don’t stand up for those who protect us, then who will stand up and support them?” asked Mercuri. “Sometimes, I wonder if we lose sight of who the real victim in this situation is.”

A ‘model’ officer — and a ‘loving’ dad

Just days before the fatal police chase, Toney sat on the soccer field sidelines outside the St. Francis Hospital campus on the south side of Indianapolis.

On the field was his oldest daughter, Jessica, just four years old.

Horen remembered being with the Toney family that Wednesday evening.

“Jessica was really shy, and Bill was completely freaked out that she wasn’t getting down on that field by herself,” Horen recalled last week during his clemency hearing testimony.

“He went out and held her hand. She played, she smiled. We talked afterward, and it was like this big sigh of relief,” Horen continued. “I’m not sure whose smile was bigger. Was it Jessica’s, or was it his?”

Toney’s family and friends described him as a dedicated officer, widely respected for his calm demeanor, compassion and “commitment to service.”

He was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and joined the Beech Grove Police Department in 1995 after serving as a Marion County sheriff’s deputy. During his five years with the department, Toney earned a reputation for his professionalism and fairness.

“He would call dads when the teenage kids were misbehaving … just trying to make life better in his community,” Horen said, before retelling a ride-along with Toney.

“I was riding with him one night. We pulled a guy over who was driving foolishly. He was about a block from his home. We saw him. I got out of the car, and Bill goes out, and he’s like, ‘What are you doing, man?’ And he’s like, ‘I just live right there.’ And he’s pointing at the house,” Horen recalled. “Bill said, ‘Drive your car to that driveway right now. We’re going to come back here repeatedly the rest of the night. If that car has moved, you’re going to jail. But if you stay inside, and go to bed, I’ll catch you a break.’”

“He didn’t want to ruin lives,” Horen continued. “He wanted to protect his community when it helped us. He wanted to help people.”

In emotional testimonies, Toney’s family and friends painted Richie as a remorseless killer who showed “repeated disrespect” during his trial.

Winters recalled that Richie was “rude, belligerent and obnoxious” throughout the trial. She noted that during the victim impact statement by Toney’s widow, Ritchie was so disruptive that the judge threatened to use duct tape to silence him.

Horen highlighted Ritchie’s “trophy tattoo” on his neck — of the number 37, a reference to Toney’s police unit number, with a lightning bolt between the digits — visible on the first day of the trial.

“He turned his head, looked at me, and he wasn’t sorry then, and he’s still not sorry,” said Beth; Toney’s sister, at a May 12 clemency hearing.

At the 2002 sentencing hearing, while Dee Dee read her victim impact statement, she was repeatedly interrupted by Ritchie, who laughed and later called her a “b**ch” when she said Ritchie was a coward.

Despite Richie’s recent apology before the state’s parole board, “he has never addressed this to anyone in our family,” Toney’s sister said.

“He has never used the words ‘I’m sorry,” she told the clemency panel. “And he has yet to acknowledge that it was more than just ‘a lady’ and two children who have been affected. Families, friends and colleagues are just a few groups that come to mind.”

“Bill is forever gone,” she added. “I ask that my brother be honored as the hero he is, and to carry out the execution sentence to the murderer who has never shown remorse, nor apologized, for the choices he has made.”

Ritchie’s life scarred by ‘trauma,’ abandonment

Court documents, trial records and recent clemency hearing testimony paint a different picture for Ritchie, who in the days before the shooting was living in an Ohio motel and evading charges from an earlier, recent carjacking in Indiana.

In court testimony, witnesses described Ritchie’s “volatile” behavior in the days and hours before the shooting — he had threatened people with a gun, fired it inside a hotel room, and talked about coming to Indianapolis to fight another man over a personal dispute.

Ritchie and his group were reportedly drinking and using drugs at that time, too.

Around 7 p.m. on the night of Sept. 29, 2000, Ritchie — along with a man from Ohio, Michael Greer — stole a van from a Speedway gas station in Beech Grove. He armed himself with a stolen 9mm Glock, and according to court testimony, planned to commit an armed robbery.

Police later found wigs and masks in the wrecked van and in nearby bushes, which authorities said were intended as disguises for the planned robbery.

“That night … was a train that left the station with no brakes, and multiple bad decisions led to losing the life of a man that should be here today,” Ritchie told Indiana’s Parole Board earlier this month.

He said that on the night of the incident, he was with a group trying to steal rims from car dealers. They took a van and parked it at an apartment complex. When they went back to get the van, a police officer pulled in behind them.

“Everything sped up then. It was like if you had a fast-forward button on a movie, and you hit the button, everything sped out of control,” Ritchie said.

“I ended up hitting and killing him. That’s something I have to live with every day. I wish I could take that back,” Ritchie continued, crying. “I don’t blame him. He was doing his job. I should have never been in a stolen car. I should never have had a gun. I should have just did the right thing when I got out.”

Ritchie was born into what his clemency attorneys described as “unrelenting trauma.”

His biological mother, Marion, drank heavily throughout her pregnancy — even more than she did while pregnant with his two older brothers, according to her own sworn testimony.

Her drinking and drug use was corroborated by family members and experts during Ritchie’s sentencing, and again during recent clemency hearings.

Multiple witnesses, including family and neighbors, recalled seeing Marion visibly intoxicated “every day,” sometimes staggering drunk in public or passed out. One witness told the sentencing jury, “Every day that I would see her, she would be pretty drunk, and I would tell her, ‘stop it.’ It didn’t do any good.”

As a child, Ritchie was frequently unattended. Confined to his crib, he was “left choking on marijuana and cigarette smoke,” his attorneys wrote in recent clemency filings.

“While Marion ignored Ben’s cries, her friends changed Ben’s diapers, bought him clothes, and fed him,” lawyers continued. “Marion left Ben with anyone who would take him — sometimes leaving an infant Ben on front porches to wait alone for the door to open.”

Richie was later sent to live with Marion’s sister, Brenda, who lived in “a filthy house with no food.” Brenda’s husband was reportedly physically and verbally abusive towards Ritchie.

Although reluctant, Marion’s sister, Verna, ultimately took Ritchie in shortly before his second birthday, becoming his adoptive mom.

Verna provided “a much more stable home life,” Ritchie’s lawyers said, but “the damage was already done.”

“Prenatal exposure to alcohol permanently damaged Ben’s brain, setting him up for a lifetime of brain-based impairments,” the defense team wrote. “Then, the neglect and abuse Ben suffered in his early years further damaged his already constrained ability to regulate emotion.”

Ritchie’s intense anger issues and tantrums began around age three, according to his clemency application.

“Ben remembers episodes of rage as a child where he destroyed his toys,” his lawyers said. “After each episode when the rage cleared, Ben was left to cry over the broken pieces of things he loved.”

When he started school, Ritchie’s behavior and classwork “were a constant challenge.” Teachers referred him for evaluations every year due to “problematic behaviors.”

At age 10, in the 4th grade, he was admitted to Community Hospital North for a six-week in-patient psychiatric stay. While there, he attempted suicide and told hospital staff he felt like “everyone would be better off if I were dead.”

Ritchie was diagnosed as “seriously emotionally handicapped,” medical records show. Back at school, he received special education services until he dropped out altogether in 9th grade.

“Given my experiences with Ben as an adolescent, (Toney’s killing) was the exact type of situation where those severe emotional disabilities became fully evident and engaged,” said John Mast, a former special education teacher who worked with Ritchie for more than three years starting in the early 1990s. “He did not have the emotional tools, he did not have the skills, to make a different and acceptable decision.”

By the time he turned 20, before the fatal shooting, Ritchie had been in and out of the juvenile system and had racked up a string of criminal offenses.

According to court records and his defense team, he struggled with untreated mental illness, impaired judgment and limited impulse control.

Experts testified during his trial and post-conviction hearings that Ritchie’s neurological and psychological impairments made him prone to impulsive, self-destructive decisions — including the one that ended Toney’s life.

Ritchie’s current lawyers point to his recently formalized diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) as shedding critical new light on his behavior — evidence they say was never fully presented to the jury that sentenced him to death.

While Ritchie’s trial included testimony about his mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy and his cognitive deficits, the specific FASD diagnosis was not identified until years later by experts using updated clinical standards.

Ritchie’s legal team contends the disorder left him with brain damage that impairs impulse control, judgment, and decision-making — factors they believe should have mitigated his culpability and now warrant a commuted sentence, or at least a new opportunity to present evidence in court.

“FASD is both cause and effect of the crime,” Ritchie’s defense attorney, Steve Schutte, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

He said the case “started and ended at the same spot because of the mistakes made” by Ritchie’s earlier, “ineffective” defense counsel who failed to present Ritchie’s FASD diagnosis at trial or in post-conviction proceedings.

Attempts by the Capital Chronicle to reach Ritchie’s previous lawyers were unsuccessful.

“Nothing presented saying that Ben does have brain damage caused by prenatal exposure to alcohol and other neurotoxins,” Schutte said. “That’s important … we now know that FASD not only helps mitigate the crime, it helps explain the crime.”

Since being sentenced to death in 2002, Ritchie has spent more than two decades on Indiana’s death row.

Ritchie told the state’s five-member parole board that he “would never hurt anybody again,” and that he’s “never attacked” a correctional officer, “not one time.” He admitted, however, to having past issues with other inmates.

Prison records show at least 43 disciplinary conduct reports, including threats against staff, assaults on inmates, and possession of a six-inch shank. In one incident, he told a guard he hoped his next victim would be a Black female officer. In another, he was caught coughing on staff after testing positive for COVID-19. And last December, prison officials say Ritchie asked a correctional officer to procure methamphetamine for him.

His attorneys, however, cited numerous positive interactions in prison — like mentoring other inmates and writing poetry — as signs of his reform. During incarceration, he’s learned to cut hair and give others tattoos. Ritchie said he uses those skills as opportunities to talk to younger inmates.

Through a prison program allowing inmates to adopt animals, Ritchie additionally found companionship in a shelter cat named Cletus.

“Ben loves animals. He’s enamored with their cuteness, their ingenuity, and their unique personalities. His cell is covered in wall hangings depicting horses, buffalo, and wolves — animals he likely encountered in his beloved Western novels,” his lawyers said. “Through his relationship with Cletus, Ben was finally able to experience the unconditional love absent from his tumultuous childhood.”

Ritchie said he “didn’t take credit” for his actions for years and “was in a dark hole.” But since receiving mental health counseling in prison, he’s learned “coping mechanisms” and “gotten control” of himself.

“I’m just not that kid I was 25 years ago. That kid was lost. He needed guidance, and I have guidance now,” Ritchie added.

“What I did was horrible. But it’s a blessing, because William Toney’s life could best be served by me helping other guys,” he reiterated. “I’m never going to go home. I’m OK with that. But if I’m in here, I’m trying to help guys not reoffend, not come back to this system.”

Closure for some, an injustice to others

Toney’s family and friends who have spoken publicly said Ritchie’s execution is the final, necessary step in a years long journey for closure.

“It’s time. We’re all tired,” said Dee Dee, Toney’s widow. “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.”

Joel Hand, a former prosecutor on Ritchie’s case, told the Capital Chronicle that he remains “firmly” supportive of Ritchie’s death sentence.

“Indiana has the death penalty for a reason, and murder of a law enforcement officer in the line of duty is clearly one of the qualifiers for capital punishment,” Hand said in a recent interview. He added that “there is absolutely nothing about this case that would have indicated in any way, shape, or form, that the death penalty was not appropriate for Benjamin Ritchie.”

Hand noted that during trial proceedings, Ritchie showed “no remorse,” was disrespectful to his own counsel, and “was very spiteful and hateful” toward Toney’s widow.

Among the other Indiana officials who have urged that state to move forward with the scheduled execution, Delaware County Prosecutor Eric Hoffman said in a recent letter that “there are absolutely no injustices to correct in Ritchie’s convictions and sentence.”

Hoffman was not involved in prosecuting the case but said he felt compelled to speak out.

“Perhaps the only injustice is that it has taken this long to carry out the lawfully imposed sentence of death,” he wrote. “Quite the contrary. Perhaps the only injustice is that it has taken this long to carry out the lawfully imposed sentence of death.”

He emphasized the gravity of Ritchie’s actions and framed the crime as an attack not just on one officer, but on the rule of law itself.

Hoffman described law enforcement as “peace keepers, the shield for the innocent and vulnerable, the guardians standing between us and violence and lawlessness.”

“They form the thin blue line that stands between criminals and their would-be victims,” he continued. “It is the police who stand on that line between law, order, and safety and that of chaos, anarchy, and violence.”

Police officers, he added, “have the absolute right to go home to their family at the end of their shift.”

“Benjamin Ritchie infringed on Officer Toney’s rights in the most egregious way,” Hoffman wrote. “Ritchie seeks mercy. However, mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”

But opponents of the death penalty argue that Ritchie’s execution would not reflect justice.

Anti-death penalty advocates note that Ritchie’s “widely publicized mental disabilities … have never been fully considered in court,” raising concerns about “disparities in the use of the death penalty.”

Leadership at Death Penalty Action, a nonprofit that advocates against executions, further emphasized that since Ritchie was convicted in 2002, 29 additional Indiana law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty, “yet not one of those cases has resulted in a death sentence.”

“Benjamin Ritchie can be held accountable and severely punished without executing him,” said Abraham Bonowitz, the groups’ executive director. “Governor Braun has until Monday night at midnight to change his mind. We urge him to please show mercy by commuting Ben Ritchie’s death sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.”

Statistics cited by Death Penalty Action further show that law enforcement officers are more likely to be killed in the line of duty in states that have the death penalty than in states that do not have it, “and even more so in states that actually carry out executions.”

Ritchie’s attorneys wanted to explore his FASD diagnosis before the Indiana Supreme Court, but the justices denied requests for a new hearing. The inmate’s lawyers are now seeking a last-minute execution pause from the U.S. Supreme Court. As of Monday morning, a decision had not been issued.

A separate lawsuit filed by Ritchie’s lawyers last week sought to allow clergy to be present at the Tuesday execution. Court records indicate the case was resolved as of Friday, though the terms remain unclear. After suing the state, Joseph Corcoran was allowed to have a pastor in the execution chamber.

It’s also still unclear whether any media representatives will be invited to witness Ritchie’s execution.

A federal judge on Friday rejected a request by the Capital Chronicle and four other news outlets to pause a state law and Department of Correction policy barring independent media witnesses.

News reporters are granted access to a designated area outside of the Indiana State Prison but are not permitted to directly witness the state’s actions — unless invited by the condemned to fill one of the five spots.

The Capital Chronicle and other news outlets have requested spots on Ritchie’s witness list but have so far been denied.

“We have to make sure that with execution, which you can’t take back, everything is done correctly. In this case, you can’t say that Ben’s had fair process,” said Mark Koselke, an attorney on Ritchie’s defense team. “His most important goal right now is to help as much as possible … to help better the prison system, and help people that are going to get out someday — and to do good on behalf of Toney’s name for what happened, as much as he can, with what’s given left in his life.”

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.