San Quentin Death Row Inmate Meets Early Death After Killed By Fellow Inmate

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (THECOUNT) — In a rare San Quentin State Prison death row killing, one condemned inmate killed another Friday. The death marks the first slaying of a death row inmate in California in more than 20 years, officials said.

Jonathan Fajardo, 30, was stabbed in the chest and neck with an inmate-made weapon in a recreational yard of the cell house that holds the bulk of condemned inmates at the correctional facility, said a department spokeswoman.

Luis Rodriguez, 34, is considered the suspect, she said. Investigators were trying to determine a motive and how he obtained or was able to make the weapon, she said.

Such slayings are common in California prisons but rare on death row, where the last one occurred in 1997. “It’s very unusual,” said San Francisco State University associate professor Amy Smith, who studies capital punishment and the psychological impacts of death row. “It’s not supposed to happen, of course.”source

There is high security on death row, were every inmate is housed separately but most are allowed to congregate in small groups in the exercise yard where Fajardo was killed, officials said.

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