According to the California Department of Prisons and Rehabilitation, a convicted serial killer is accused of killing his pedophile cellmate less than a month after he was admitted to jail.
According to CDCR, North Kern State Prison staff discovered Juan Villanueva, 53, unconscious during a welfare check at 8:49 a.m. on Friday. Villanueva was serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for aggravated sexual assault of a minor under 14.
Villanueva was pronounced deceased at 9:03 in the morning.
He shared a cell with 51-year-old Ramon Escobar, who admitted guilt for the murders of his aunt and uncle in 2018 and the shootings that left five men dead and seven more injured. Escobar had fled Houston before entering a guilty plea.
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On February 2, Villanueva was moved into North Kern State Prison, a 3,500-inmate medium-security institution.
Escobar has subsequently been put in segregated quarters while the prison’s Investigative Services Unit and the Kern County District Attorney look into Villanueva’s death, which the Kern County Coroner has decided was a homicide.
Further information, including the manner of his death, was not disclosed by the authorities.
Escobar fled Texas and started a spate of violent attacks in Santa Monica, where, according to the prosecution, he beat his victims. In contrast, they slept on the sidewalks or the beach over the course of a two-week crime spree that claimed five lives and injured seven others.
Authorities said that all but one were in need of housing.
Escobar was deported six times before the murders, according to the authorities. He is originally from El Salvador.
