LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska prison officials are appealing a judge’s order to give drawings made by an executed child serial killer to a former TV reporter and book author.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning filed the appeal Friday.

Last month, a judge ruled that the prison system must permit author Mark Pettit to inspect and reproduce the drawings.

Pettit is the author of “A Need to Kill: The True-Crime Account of John Joubert, Nebraska’s Most Notorious Serial Child Killer.” He has been trying for more than 25 years to get access to the drawings in which Joubert said he depicted his fantasies to kill again.

Joubert was executed in 1996 for the fatal stabbings of two Bellevue boys in 1983.