CAMARILLO : Child Killer Gets Stay of Execution

Child killer Theodore Frank has won a 45-day stay of his death sentence for the 1978 torture-murder of a 2-year-old Camarillo girl, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Frank was scheduled to be executed in the gas chamber Friday, though a postponement was expected, said state Deputy Atty. Gen. Jeff Koch, who is prosecuting the case.

U. S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler granted Frank’s request for a stay of execution to allow him to find a lawyer to handle his federal appeal.

Koch said a representative of the court’s attorney selection board has been unable to find a lawyer to represent Frank, who was convicted in 1980 of kidnaping Amy Sue Seitz, torturing her with tools, raping and strangling her before dumping her body in Topanga Canyon.

Koch said he plans to file a motion within the next week asking the judge to lift the stay and appoint the state public defenders who handled Frank’s earlier defense to handle the federal proceedings.

“They were very competent,” Koch said. “They’re very familiar with the facts of the case and can get up to speed real quickly.”

Unless the stay is lifted, Koch said, it will be a minimum of six months before a new defense attorney could be named and could prepare Frank’s case for trial. Even then, barring a reversal, Frank could win further delay of his execution by seeking to overturn Stotler’s decision in federal appeals court and then the U. S. Supreme Court.