The Nebraska attorney general’s office has asked the state Supreme Court Thursday to schedule an execution date for former cult leader Michael Ryan, who was condemned for the torture and slaying of a man in 1985 at Ryan’s compound near Rulo.

Ryan’s execution would be the first in Nebraska since 1997 and its first by lethal injection.

“If there’s anyone that should die of the death penalty, it would be Michael Ryan,” Kelle said, “but I don’t feel that we have the right to say who should live or die.”

LINCOLN, Neb. -- An appeal by one-time cult leader Michael Ryan in a 1985 torture-slaying on a farm near Rulo was rejected Friday by a federal appeals court.

Religious cult murderer Michael W. Ryan saw the eight-year-long stay on his execution lifted this week by a federal judge who called Ryan's crime "sickening."

AP, Dec. 18, 2002

Interviews with the authorities, relatives of the Rulo farm’s residents and neighbors create a picture of weapon stockpiles, religious fanaticism and anti-Government sentiment. The farm’s recent residents have been linked by the authorities and family members to an anti-Semitic, white supremacist religious movement, the Ministry of Christ Church, which is called Identity after its publication, and to an allied group, the radically antitax, anti-Government Posse Comitatus.