Prison Murders

Prosecutors seeking justice for Terry Lamar Walker in death found little good to say about him in life. A convicted burglar, stickup man and bank robber, Walker spent much of his adult life behind bars. His killing in May 1999, at the high-security federal prison in Marion, Ill., was anything but discreet. A guard reported seeing one inmate grab the unarmed Walker from behind while another lunged at him, over and over, with a 4-inch shiv.

A former IRS agent who opened a tax preparation business was sentenced Friday to nearly 24 years in prison for defrauding clients out of more than $11 million and then attempting to hire a hit man to kill four of them. Steven Martinez, 51, of Ramona was sentenced in San Diego federal court to 286 months in prison and five years of supervised release.  He was also ordered by District Court Judge William Hayes to forfeit all the property, including a home in Mexico, and other possessions that he purchased with clients' money.

Armed with a shank, Barry "The Baron" Mills, the kingpin of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, nearly decapitated an inmate in a bathroom stall for hoarding drugs. Edgar "The Snail" Hevle, a trusted lieutenant in the Brotherhood, allegedly arranged for the murder of a prisoner who threw a packet of sugar at him, a slight he apparently considered worthy of a violent death.

A Compton gang member already sentenced to life in prison for murder and awaiting trial in a second slaying is being investigated in the strangling of his Twin Towers jail cellmate. Jamar Lavon Tucker, 28, was found inside his two-man cell next to the body of William Levell Hansbrough during a security check Thursday at the downtown L.A. jail, officials said. Tucker told deputies he had just killed his cellmate, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

The fatal stabbing of an officer by an inmate at the Chino men's prison might have been prevented if guards had not routinely violated security protocols and if managers had properly housed the alleged assailant in a cell for violent convicts, an investigative report concluded Wednesday. In response to the findings, state corrections officials placed Warden Lori DiCarlo and two chief deputies on paid administrative leave and launched a widespread audit of prison operations.

A Los Angeles County Jail inmate beat his cellmate to death, the fourth homicide in the nation's largest jail system in the last year, authorities said Thursday. Sheriff's officials said they did not know what prompted the assault late Wednesday or how long it lasted. Deputies said they learned of the beating from inmates who reported that a man was down in the fifth-floor mental health module at downtown's Twin Towers Correctional Facility.

Inmates at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail beat and stomped another inmate to death after guards locked them in an unsupervised holding room this week, raising new questions about a system plagued in recent years by murders and attacks behind bars. The incident was the eighth killing inside the jail in the last two years and came despite assurances by Sheriff Lee Baca last year that he was taking steps to increase security and improve segregation of violent inmates.

Shane Wilson is tough and tattooed, a former Nazi Low Rider gang member with a long criminal record. "I'm a big guy, I'm a bad guy," Wilson said in a jailhouse interview Thursday. But when he agreed to testify against a suspected murderer in exchange for a lighter sentence, Wilson said, "I was scared for my life." Witnesses are targets, he said, especially in jail: "In my world, if you testify, you put your life in jeopardy -- bottom line."

Hector Febres was the man who knew too much. And, like a character in a spy novel damned with an excess of secrets, Febres met an untimely and grisly end: He was poisoned last month in his cell. That is the conclusion of Argentine officials investigating the death of the former coast guard officer, who was awaiting a verdict on charges of torture. The case arose from Febres' service under a military dictatorship decades earlier at the country's most notorious clandestine detention center.

David Paul Hammer appears fated to die the way he killed his cellmate, Andrew Hunt Marti--inside a small prison room, his arms and legs strapped down, lying face up to a world that will do just as well without him. Hammer murdered Marti nearly five years ago, slowly strangling him in his lower bunk in cell 103 of the Allenwood penitentiary. With the federal government soon to begin executing prisoners again, Hammer at this moment is the first in line.

Los Angeles County homicide detectives are continuing to investigate the death of an inmate last week. William Hansbrough, 36, was declared dead just after 10 a.m. Thursday at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said Sunday. Hansbrough had been strangled, according to the county coroner's office. Guards conducting a security check were "told by an inmate that he had killed his cellmate," according to the Sheriff's Department. The men were housed in a jail module designated for mentally ill inmates, sheriff's officials said.

A Supreme Court case testing whether a prosecutor can be sued for framing suspects for a murder ended Monday when an Iowa county agreed to pay $12 million to two men who were freed after spending 26 years in prison. In the past, the high court had said prosecutors could not be sued for doing their jobs, even if they sometimes convicted the wrong defendant. And in November, an Obama administration lawyer argued on behalf of Pottawattamie County, asserting that there is no constitutional "right not to be framed."

A Los Angeles federal judge took the highly unusual step of closing a two-day trial this week in a case involving the 2005 prison killing of Jewish Defense League activist Earl Krugel. Constitutional scholars and press-freedom advocates deemed the broad secrecy accorded the trial by U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson perplexing -- and a likely violation of the 1st Amendment. Wilson issued a protective order covering U.S.

A federal judge in Baton Rouge overturned the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 stabbing death of a state prison guard. Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for more than 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two others at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller in 1972. U.S. District Judge James Brady approved a federal magistrate's June recommendation that Woodfox's conviction be overturned because his former lawyers had failed to challenge some testimony against him. Prosecutors could retry him.

Among the inmates at the Clark County Detention Center in the summer of 2006 was a local celebrity, an ex-cop whose long fight to reverse his murder conviction still intrigued his hometown. Ronald L. Mortensen had been a rookie Las Vegas police officer the night he and his partner went on a drunken off-duty spree. It ended with a fatal shooting. Was it Mortensen or his partner who pulled the trigger? The question dominated a sensational trial in 1997.

A special grand jury that reviewed the fatal beating of a Theo Lacy Jail inmate scolded the Orange County Sheriff's Department for investigating the death itself rather than turning the case over to the district attorney, violating a 20-year-old policy "through conscious choice or negligent action." In a letter made public Wednesday, the panel pointed out that the policy adopted in 1985 had been honored in 129 out of 130 custodial death investigations.

Two inmates have been slain over the last three weeks inside a cellblock at the Lancaster state prison, renewing concerns about overcrowding at the institution. The latest victim was found Tuesday morning, stuffed under the bottom bunk of his cell and wrapped in a bedsheet, said prison spokesman Ken Lewis. Richard Ponton, 36, also reportedly had a pillow over his face and a cardboard box shielding his body. "There was a significant amount of blood on the floor," Lewis said.

State prison officials on Friday removed the warden and two deputy wardens from their posts at the California Institution for Men in Chino after an investigation determined that mismanagement and security lapses contributed to the slaying of a guard in January.

A nine-month grand jury investigation into the beating death of an Orange County jail inmate found that no crimes were committed by sheriff's deputies accused of instigating the assault and ignoring the victim's cries for help, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Friday. But Rackauckas said the 2006 slaying of John Chamberlain could have been avoided and admonished the Sheriff's Department for not following its own procedures to ensure inmate safety, although he wouldn't elaborate.

Hector Febres was the man who knew too much. And, like a character in a spy novel damned with an excess of secrets, Febres met an untimely and grisly end: He was poisoned last month in his cell. That is the conclusion of Argentine officials investigating the death of the former coast guard officer, who was awaiting a verdict on charges of torture. The case arose from Febres' service under a military dictatorship decades earlier at the country's most notorious clandestine detention center.