LA Supreme Court delays execution for serial killer Daniel Blank

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) - A stay of execution has been granted for convicted serial killer Daniel Joseph Blank by the Louisiana Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Convicted serial killer Daniel Blank, 53, was scheduled to be executed on March 14. However, officials with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections stated they do not have the drugs necessary to carry out the execution.

A stay of execution is a court order to temporarily suspend the execution of a court judgment or other court order.

Blank, known as the River Parishes serial killer, admitted to killing six people: Victor Rossi, 41, Barbara Bourgeois, 58, Lillian Philippe, 71, Sam Arcuri, 76, Louella Arcuri, 69, and Joan Brock, 55, in Gonzales, St. Amant, LaPlace and Paulina between 1996 and 1997. He was arrested in November 1997 by the Polk County Sheriff's Office in Livingston, TX and sentenced to death in 1999.

"The key issue is this [execution] date. We have worked very hard to get it stayed," said Blank's attorney Gary Clements. "[Blank] is in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court now to go against what happened to him in court. We have filed an RID, which is like an appeal, and it was filed on February 1. There is no reason why an execution date should have been set."

Clements told WAFB they are still trying to prove Blank's innocence. Clements says what Blank actually admitted to and what the evidence actually was does not match up.

The RID has been filed with the 23rd JDC and the Louisiana Supreme Court.

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