My family entered and surprised a burglar while he was ransacking their home. The perpetrator tied them up, tortured them, shot all of them in the head and beat my brother-in-law with barbells so badly a closed casket was inevitable.



This was my family….my sister thirty year old Theresa and brother-in-law Pat, my five year old niece Lisa and four year old nephew Greg
(The Patrick Gilligan Family).



This crime was committed in 1980 and the criminal, Donald Ray Wallace Jr., sat on death row for 25 years claiming his innocence.



Wallace was one of the longest death row inmates in Indiana and
this crime still stands as being one of the most heinous in Indiana.



To the knowledge of the Indiana Attorney General, in March of 2005, this was the longest appeals process on the record books.



On March 10th, 2005, the sentence was carried out …. Donald Ray Wallace Jr. was executed for the cold blooded vicious murders of four innocent people ....25 years after the crime!

Here is one of his confession letters to me. This was dated 1992. Even after this letter and many more, he still appealed his case, continued to voice his innocence. Until 1 week before his execution when on national TV he said these letters were the truth.

MY BOOK...SURVIVING THE DEATH PENALTY...This is the true story of one of the most heinous crimes committed in Indiana...the Patrick Gilligan Family... The crime, the criminal Donald Ray Wallace Jr., the victims and the unrest this death penalty wait held for 25 years. It is a parallel story of both the criminal, the victims and their lives. This story is not only about a cold blooded crime with all confession letters, but also about the journey one travels as a victim. This is the story from the initial crime to its conclusion, with twists & turns that most average people seldom understand or endure. This book tells of the Death Penalty wait for both the criminal and the victims and how their lives are forever intertwined. Stories such as this one are few and far between. Crimes happen in the millions but the victims story, along with the criminal's story, are often not told in their entirety.

Answer from Donald Ray Wallace Jr., death row, to my questions of why and how.... Even after this private confession, he continued to announce to the courts his innocence...until one week before his execution.... 2 August 1992 Dear Ms. Harrington: I've read your letter a dozen times over the weekend. It was hard to read such things, and it's harder to talk about them. The answer to your question of why has no single answer. It was just a chain of bad circumstances that went from bad to worse. To begin with, my life at that time had been reduced to injecting drugs and doing burglaries so I could get more drugs. You've heard some of my history, so maybe you can glimpse the torment from which I tried to hide in drugs. In any case, I was not a rational, well-adjusted human being at that time. That's the first bad circumstance. The second bad circumstance was the deadbolt locks. They tend to keep people out of a house. But if they get in nevertheless, deadbolt locks keep them from getting out. The only door through which to escape in that house that night was the laundry room door. Patrick entered through the garage door, making it impossible simply to flee. The idea at that time was to try to get the situation under control by tying everyone up to have a few minutes within which to get away. The pistol was reholstered to tie up the last person---Theresa. Just as that was completed, Patrick slipped his bonds and attacked. I don't know if he was extraordinarily brave, or if he didn't trust that his family wouldn't be hurt, or both. In the struggle over the pistol, Patrick was shot in the head, and he fell to his hands and knees. Then everything else just went to hell. Everyone was shot within 10 seconds after Patrick --drugs, panic, insanity--it all happened too fast to understand. Neither of the children cried out-- that was an invention of a "witness" who really didn't know anything about what happened that night. No one had time to cry out. Patrick was hit twice with the barbells, without any conception of how badly it would appear afterwards. There was nothing systematic or calculating about it at that point--there was no rhyme or reason for anything at that point. No conscious decisions made. It was just all a frenzied blur. I was even bewildered as I took in the scene afterwards. In an instant the whole world had turned upside down. And I was ill in a way I had never been ill before --my entire body felt intensely ill. I relive this scene in nightmares over and over again. so I usually try to stay awake for 40-60- hours at a time so that I will be so tired that I won't dream. I must have misspoke myself in my previous letter. I meant to say only that I thought I deserved to die, not that I wanted to. But the time is soon coming when it won't matter what I want. So I venture that, when they do execute me, I hoped you felt better for it. In answer to your question, though, no--my death won't correct the mistake of January 14, 1980. It will only leave more grieving people. My apology to you and your family, and to the memory of Gregory, Lisa, Theresa and Patrick is sincere. But how hopelessly inadequate is that apology to assuage even the smallest part of the pain you have endured. But it is all that I have to offer. I can't reverse that horrible moment. I can't give back anything that I took from you and all those who were connected to them. For two reasons have I not expressed this remorse to you before now. For one, it has taken me a long time to change myself from what I once was. It took you this long to tell me how you felt about me. It has taken me time as well. Second, I wouldn't pass an apology to your through the media, who would only sensationalize it and make a mockery of it. I can never correct the sad changes I've caused in you. But you ask how you can ever reassure your children when Theresa couldn't. But Theresa did, and they were calmed. And I guess you have to tell children that everything is going to be all right even if you think it isn't. We spare them as long as we can from the adulthood knowledge that there is no assurance about anything in this world. That's true for all adults, even though some of us have felt its sting more than others have or will. But you have to go on even where there's no assurance, or you assure that you go nowhere. When you leave your home at night, draw the curtains so no one can see within and determine that no one is home. Leave lights on, and leave a television set on at a fair volume. Burglars don't enter homes when they think someone is in them. Most burglars cruise down streets looking for homes which look like no one is in. They generally don't even stop and investigate unless a house is darkened. They drive on past lighted homes. Sincerely, Donald Wallace My mind was totally in a blur after receiving this letter as he was continued to announce to the world his innocence to the crime. Had he just confessed to me the murders of my family? Was this letter the truth? Was he remorseful because he was caught. If he wasn't caught would he still be in the same situation...stealing, killing, leading a violent life of drugs and crime. Parts of the letter made sense and other parts did not. His remorse did not!