Appeals Court Blocks Bundy’s Execution Indefinitely

A federal appeals court on Wednesday indefinitely blocked the execution of convicted serial killer Theodore R. Bundy, who had been scheduled to die today in the electric chair.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay without comment. A court clerk said the Atlanta-based court would hear Bundy’s appeal within two months.

Bundy had been scheduled to be put to death along with Gerald Stano, 34, a convicted killer, at Florida State Prison near this northern Florida town. Stano was granted an indefinite stay by the Florida Supreme Court.

‘Obviously Relieved’

“Bundy was obviously relieved, although he didn’t seem overly excited,” said Vernon Bradford, Department of Corrections spokesman. Prison officials allowed him to call his wife, he said.

Bundy, 39, condemned for murdering two Florida State University sorority sisters, lost appeals in state courts, and on Tuesday U.S. District Judge William Zloch in Fort Lauderdale denied his attorneys’ request for an indefinite stay. However, Zloch granted a 24-hour stay to give the lawyers time to appeal to the 11th Circuit.

Bundy also was convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl in Florida and of a 1975 kidnaping in Utah, and was awaiting trial in Colorado on murder charges when he escaped and went to Florida.

The FBI said when it put Bundy on its Ten Most Wanted List that he was wanted for questioning in 36 slayings.

The appeals filed by Washington attorneys James E. Coleman and Polly Nelson centered on Bundy’s defense at his 1979 trial in which he insisted on acting as his own attorney.