This Day in History: 1965-07-20

A seventh petition for a stay of execution was filed by lawyers for Edgar H. Smith who was scheduled to die during the week of August 23rd. County Judge Arthur O’Dea, who had originally passed the sentence against Smith, set the new execution date after U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan had vacated the sixth stay. Smith had been on death row for more than eight years, longer than any convicted murderer had ever spent there. Smith was convicted for first degree murder in the killing of fifteen-year-old Victoria Zielinski of Wyckoff Ave. Ramsey in a gravel pit off Chapel Road and Fardale Avenue in Mahwah.