California State Prison At Corcoran

SACRAMENTO -- More than a quarter-century after he was sentenced to death, a man convicted of carrying out the contract killings of three people in a Fresno grocery store has died of natural causes at a hospital in Bakersfield. Billy Ray Hamilton, 58, used a shotgun in the Sept. 4, 1980, murders of Douglas Scott White, Bryon William Schletewitz and Josephine Linda Rocha at Fran's Market. Hamilton died Monday after a long battle with cancer.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of Sacramento, who 10 years ago ordered state prisons to improve their care of mentally ill inmates, became alarmed this year by reports of repeated failures in such care at Corcoran prison. In March, Karlton ordered a review of employee attitudes toward the mentally ill at the prison and required the institution to provide him monthly reports of guards' use of force against mentally ill inmates.

If Michael Jackson is acquitted of child molestation and related charges, he'll probably return home to his whimsical Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara County. But if he is convicted of any of the 10 felony counts against him, he will probably land in the most secure prison unit in California, designed to protect famous convicts from attack by other inmates, prison officials say. Corcoran State Prison is set in the middle of America's richest cotton fields, about 50 miles south of Fresno.

All through the night, the howls kept coming from the cell of inmate Ronald Herrera. More than one guard at Corcoran State Prison thought something was terribly amiss. Herrera wouldn't stop screaming late Sunday, and he had covered his cell window in a curtain of toilet paper soaked in blood. One guard had seen Herrera, a dialysis patient suffering from hepatitis, pull out the medical shunt from his arm, corrections officials said.

An autopsy of a Corcoran State Prison inmate who bled to death in his cell overnight on Super Bowl Sunday showed that his medical shunt was not fully closed, allowing blood to flow out of his jugular vein, authorities said.

A female correctional officer at troubled Corcoran State Prison has been arrested on charges of conspiring with an inmate to solicit the murder of her husband. For months, authorities said, correctional staff at the Kings County prison noticed an unusual bond developing between guard Linda Brock and an inmate who belonged to the infamous Black Guerrilla Family gang.

An elderly prison inmate in Corcoran starved to death last week without medical or corrections staff recognizing that he had begun the last of several hunger strikes, authorities said. Officials with the state Department of Corrections said the death of 72-year-old Khem Singh, who was so emaciated that he weighed less than 80 pounds, came as a surprise to staff at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran. He was not being monitored at the time for weight or fluid loss, officials said.

An investigation into the Feb. 2 bleeding death of an inmate at Corcoran State Prison has been hindered by correctional officers who have refused to give details about the incident, authorities said. Guards who initially seemed willing to cooperate in the probe have decided to keep quiet after meeting with union representatives and union attorneys, authorities said.

For two months, guards and medical staff at a state prison in Corcoran failed to provide meals or emergency care to an elderly inmate dying of malnutrition, according to inmate accounts given to a state senator. In the days before 72-year-old Khem Singh starved to death at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility last month, fellow inmates said, they alerted correctional officers to his grave condition and filed official complaints about his mistreatment.

A grand jury may be hearing testimony on the death of an inmate who bled in his cell while guards watched football on television. Ronald Herrera bled to death at Corcoran State Prison on Feb. 2, the night of the Super Bowl, which led to accusations that guards neglected to help him because they were distracted by the game. Prison officials have denied those charges. On Thursday, several officers were served with grand jury summonses asking them to testify in the case.