RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – Donald Fell, the man sentenced to die in Vermont’s first death penalty case in nearly 50 years, has been removed from the state.

Federal marshals took Fell from his jail cell Friday, a day after a federal jury ruled that he should be put to death for abducting and killing a North Clarendon woman.

“He’s no longer in Vermont,” U.S Marshal for Vermont John Edwards said Friday. “We’re not going to disclose which facility he is being held at, but he is out of state.”

Fell’s most likely destination is Terre Haute, Ind., home to the federal prison system’s death row.

Fell, a 25-year-old Pennsylvania native, has been housed at the St. Albans jail since his arrest in December 2000.

Robert Hoffman, Vermont corrections commissioner, said Fell was held at a Vermont jail Thursday night.

“He was kept under active observation last night and it was uneventful,” Hoffman said Friday morning.

Federal Bureau of Prison officials contacted Friday said they could not comment on where Fell is housed. The bureau’s Web site has an “inmate locator” section. Fell’s name is listed on the site, but his location is not disclosed.

It’s not clear if Fell was immediately taken to the prison in Terre Haute or a federal facility closer to Vermont since he still has to return to the state for a formal sentencing hearing in the next several months.

Currently, 39 people are on federal death row. In June 2001, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was the first person executed since 1963 under the federal death penalty statute. Since McVeigh, two others have been put to death. All three were executed in Terre Haute.

Vermont abolished the death penalty in the 1960s, but the U.S. government has the authority to execute people charged with certain federal crimes. Fell was charged under federal law because King’s killing involved crossing the Vermont state line.