Prisoner-on-Prisoner Violence at California Prison Leaves One Dead, Another Stabbed
One California prisoner was killed, another wounded and three others charged in two separate prisoner-on-prisoner assaults—one of them fatal—at Kern Valley State Prison, most recently on October 6, 2023.
That’s when the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said that prisoner Richard A. Aguirre, 46, died after sustaining “multiple stab wounds” from an “inmate manufactured weapon” wielded by fellow prisoners Juan Camacho, 46, and John Martinez, 52. They were moved to restricted housing pending charges. Camacho is serving 47 years for attempted second-degree murder. Martinez is a lifer convicted of first-degree murder, like Aguirre was.
Four days later, on October 10, 2023, convicted serial killer Ramon Escobar, 52, was ordered to stand trial for murdering his cellmate at the prison the previous February. CDCR guards reportedly found a note in which Escobar confessed to fatally strangling child rapist Juan Villanueva, 53, because he “stank like pure shit.” Escobar was deported back to his native El Salvador six times before sneaking back into the U.S. and killing an aunt and uncle he was staying with in Houston, siblings Dina Escobar, 60, and Rogelio Escobar, 65, in February 2018. He then fled to Los Angeles, where he bludgeoned 11 homeless strangers the following week with a baseball bat or bolt cutters, killing five of them.
Sources: KTLA, Law & Crime
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