Prison lifer accused of drowning inmate in toilet dies

1-11-2010 Michigan:

Ionia -- A prison lifer has died just weeks after he was charged with first-degree murder in the drowning death of a fellow inmate at the Macomb County Correctional Facility in Lenox Township, state police said today.

Andrew Terence Neal, 42, who was relocated to Ionia Correctional Facility after admitting to investigators that he used bedding to restrain an inmate and forced his face into a toilet in September, was found dead in his cell Jan. 4. Police say preliminary autopsy findings attribute the death to a pulmonary embolism.

Michigan State Police Richmond Post Detective Sgt. Patrick Young said Neal told authorities he attacked 32-year-old Anthony Wayne Lee on Sept. 6 because he "wanted to kill someone."

Neal, whose last known residence was in Grand Rapids, allegedly confessed to the murder the same evening it occurred. He was relocated to Ionia and his security level was increased.

Neal was incarcerated on a murder charge from Kent County and armed robbery, weapons and assault to commit armed robbery from Wayne County.

Prosecuter Broderick Files Murder Charge Against Inmate

2-22-2010 Indiana:

ANDERSON, IN - Madison County Prosecutor Thomas Broderick, Jr., filed formal charges today against Richard L. Short, 26, a former inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility, for Murder and Prisoner in Possession of Dangerous Device, arising from the death of Charles L. Jackson, 52 (Sex Offender) also inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Jackson was stabbed to death with a homemade knife on January 23, 2010. Both Short and Jackson were incarcerated at the Pendleton Correctional Facility at the time. According to the Probable Cause Affidavit Jackson died less than an hour after he was stabbed, but not before telling an officer at the facility that Short had stabbed him.

According to Prosecutor Broderick Short has since been transferred to Wabash Valley Correctional Facility where according to the probable cause affidavit a letter written by Short was confiscated by correction officials in which letter Short admits to stabbing Jackson. Short is also reported to have admitted to State Police investigators that he stabbed Jackson according to the affidavit.

Lower bond for Tucson man who says he killed son's suspected molester

5-11-2010 Arizona:

A Tucson dad who says he shot and killed a man in self defense who he suspected was molesting his 3-year-old son had his bail reduced from $1 million to $500,000 Tuesday morning.

Daniel Renteria, 28, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder March 1, one day after he shot Richard Rue Jr., 40, and James "Red" Marschinke, 49, to death in the 5300 block of East 25th Street.

His bond was set at $1 million, but on Tuesday Assistant Pima County Public Defender Paul Skitzki asked Judge Charles Sabalos to either release Renteria to a county monitoring agency until his trial or to reduce his bond.

Many sex offenders killed by inmates in California prisons

3-19-15 California:

California state prisoners are killed at a rate double the national average, and a disproportionate number of the dead are sex offenders.

ACRAMENTO, Calif. — Shortly after 2 a.m. on April 6, 2010, a guard at Salinas Valley State Prison noticed Alan Ager’s cellmate trying to stuff something under a mattress. It was Ager, blood trickling from his mouth and a cloth noose tied around his neck.

The convicted child molester died 10 days later without regaining consciousness, his death earning his cellmate a second life sentence.

California state prisoners are killed at a rate that is double the national average – and sex offenders like Ager account for a disproportionate number of victims, according to an Associated Press analysis of corrections records.

Male sex offenders made up about 15 percent of the prison population but accounted for nearly 30 percent of homicide victims, the AP found in cataloging all 78 killings that corrections officials reported since 2007, when they started releasing slain inmates’ identities and crimes.

The deaths – 23 out of 78 – come despite the state’s creation more than a decade ago of special housing units designed to protect the most vulnerable inmates, including sex offenders, often marked men behind bars because of the nature of their crimes.

Anita Smithey murder trial: Jury selection underway for woman who says she killed rapist

11-10-2014 Florida:

Jury selection is underway this afternoon for Anita Smithey, an Oviedo woman accused of murdering her estranged husband, a man she says she shot while he was raping her.

Smithey, 46, is charged with second-degree murder. She's accused of killing Robert Cline III, May 4, 2010. She says she shot him in self-defense while he was raping her in her bed. He had put a knife to her throat, she said, and punched her.

But prosecutors say there was no rape. They contend the couple was having consensual sex, that Smithey got tired then angry when Cline would not go home, so she shot him twice.

Although Smithey had moved out three months before, the couple still got together on Monday nights for sex, she told Oviedo police. Cline was shot in the early morning hours of a Tuesday, a few hours after he had come over to her house with a bottle on tequila.

Forty potential jurors were called to the courtroom this morning. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. and attorneys need a panel of six.

Two men seeking revenge for --alleged rape-- accused of murdering Milwaukie man

10-3-2014 Oregon:

A man suspected of shooting a Milwaukie man to death in 2010 was charged Friday with murder.

Michael Edward Varela Jr. was arraigned in Clackamas County Circuit Court on one count of murder in the death of William Jerome "Billy" Gaul. Varela also was charged with two counts of attempted aggravated murder and a probation violation involving a drug possession.

A second suspect, Christopher Russell Bueler, also has been indicted on similar charges but has not yet been arraigned.

Prosecutor Chris Owen declined to comment on when Bueler, who is serving time in an Oregon prison, will be formally charged.

Gaul, 48, was one of three men attacked April 13, 2010, as they worked on a pickup in the 6800 block of Southeast Lamphier Street.

Man accused of killing in retaliation for alleged sex assault

10-20-2010 Texas:

Authorities say Shawn Phillips, 32, told his wife he was 'going to take care of it his way' after a family member accused Mark A. Gabler, 33, of sexually assaulting her.

Authorities have accused a Bexar County man of killing another man in retaliation for an alleged sexual assault of one of his family members.

Declining to call police, Shawn Phillips, 32, told his wife he was "going to take care of it his way" after a family member accused Mark A. Gabler, 33, of sexually assaulting a relative, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Police found Gabler's decomposed body May 20 in a hayfield in Southeast Bexar County after they responded to a service call at 13400 Donop Road near the intersection with Old Corpus Christi Road. He was identified through his fingerprints, the affidavit states.