The Nation - News from Aug. 20, 1989

A federal appeals court stayed the execution of William Andrews just three days before he was to die in Utah by lethal injection for three 1974 torture-killings dubbed the “hi-fi murders.” A three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the stay for Andrews, the nation’s longest-standing death row inmate, after failed appeals in federal and state courts and the state Board of Pardons’ rejection of his plea for clemency on Friday. The document did not include a reason for the stay, but said a more detailed order would follow later. Andrews, 34, of Jonesboro, La., has been on Death Row for nearly 15 years for the slayings of two women and a man during a robbery of the Hi-Fi Shop in Ogden.