Brandon Bernard died at 9:27 p.m. Thursday, becoming the ninth person executed by lethal injection so far this year in the death chamber at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute.

“If my death is what is needed to heal the pain I caused, I just hope from this moment on, all parties can move forward and have peace,” Bernard said in his final statement. “I hope you can forgive me for what I’ve done and what I’ve taken away from you.”

Bernard spoke about three minutes before the U.S. marshal in the room called to confirm no impediments for the execution. 

“For 20 years, I’ve had a peace in my heart because I know I’ve been forgiven,” said Bernard, 40, who was age 18 when married youth ministers Todd and Stacie Bagley were slain. “I know my actions caused a tragic event, and made victims not only of Todd and Stacie, but their family and my family. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could change that event, but I can’t.”

Wearing dark glasses, Bernard lay calmly with his arms strapped down away from his sides. He looked toward a witness room and his spiritual adviser, who was present in the execution chamber.

He appeared to ask a prison official if the lethal drug had started, and then he looked around and appeared to speak toward the witness room of his family.

A media corps of six viewed the execution. The victims’ family were allowed to have eight witnesses present. Bernard was allowed six witnesses, including his spiritual adviser. The witness groups were kept in separate viewing rooms in the death house facility.

The execution was scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, but late court filings delayed the process until shortly after 9 p.m. The execution began about 9:07 p.m. when the curtains raised for the witness rooms.

Families speak

Family members of the victims issued written statements and spoke briefly to media following the execution.

Georgia A. Bagley, the mother of Todd Bagley, in a written statement, thanked President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department, saying that “without this process, my family and I would not have the closure needed to move on in life.” 

“It has been very difficult to wait these 21 years for the sentence that was imposed by the judge and jury on those who cruelly participated in the destruction of our children to be finally completed,” she said. 

After the execution, Georgia Bagley said, “The apology and the remorse that was shown to the family, and the fact that they regretted their acts at that time, helped very much to heal my heart and I can truly say I forgive them.”

The Charles Woodard family, representing Stacie, also gave a brief statement following the execution.

“I pray that Brandon has accepted Christ as his savior, because if he has, Todd and Stacie will welcome him into heaven with love and forgiveness,” said Dana Ladd, reading from a statement that also thanked the president, the attorney general and others. 

The crime

Bernard was 18 and a member of a Texas street gang when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed the Bagleys, who were attending church services in Killeen, Texas.

One of Bernard’s co-defendants, Christopher Vialva, was executed in September. Prosecutors said Vialva, who was 19 at the time, was the ringleader who shot the Bagleys as they lay in the trunk before Bernard set the car on fire.

The teenagers approached the Bagleys in the afternoon on June 21, 1999, and asked them for a lift after they stopped at a convenience store. After the Bagleys agreed, Vialva pulled a gun and forced them into the trunk.

The Bagleys, who were in their 20s, spoke through an opening in the back seat of the car urging their kidnappers to accept Jesus as they drove around for hours trying to use the Bagleys ATM cards.

After the teens pulled to the side of the road, court records show, Vialva walked to the back and shot the Bagleys in the head. 

Bernard’s defense attorneys had argued in court and in a clemency petition that Bernard was a low-ranking, subservient member of the group. They said both Bagleys were likely dead before Bernard doused their car and set it on fire. They said Bernard has repeatedly expressed remorse for the killings.

Protestors opposed to executions kept up a vigil across from the prison complex entrance on Indiana 63.

Among the defense team’s requested reasons for delaying the execution was the COVID-19 outbreak at the prison complex, where the Bureau of Prisons reported more than 300 inmates tested positive for coronavirus this week. The Justice Department also confirmed eight officials who participated in an execution last month tested positive for the coronavirus.

More executions coming 

Scheduled for execution in Terre Haute on Friday is Alfred Bourgeois, now 56, who is from Louisiana.  

According to the Justice Department, Bourgeois had temporary custody of his daughter and took her with him on a trucking route in July 2002. While on the trip, Bourgeois abused the child, the government said.

At Corpus Christi Naval Air Station for a delivery, Bourgeois became enraged when his daughter tipped over her training potty and repeatedly slammed her head into the truck’s window and dashboard, killing her.

On March 16, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas found Bourgeois guilty of murder within the special territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and unanimously recommended a death sentence.

Three other federal death row inmates are slated for execution in January before Trump leaves office.

Bernard’s execution and those that followed are said to be the first during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years and come in the weeks before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.