Authorities are investigating a California inmate in the death of his cellmate, a convicted child molester, whose body was found at Mule Creek State Prison on Friday.
Officers at the Amador County prison found Robert E. Cole unresponsive in his cell at about 6:30 a.m., according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. They attempted to resuscitate him, but he was declared dead minutes later.
Cole, 48, was sent to Mule Creek from Placer County. He was serving a life sentence without parole for multiple violent sex crimes, including having sex with a child under 10, oral copulation with force with a child under 14 and oral copulation with an unconscious victim, according to CDCR officials.
Cole’s cellmate, Justin P. Welsh, has been placed in restricted housing while authorities with the prison and the Amador County district attorney’s office investigate the suspected homicide. The Amador County Coroner’s Office will determine Cole’s official cause of death.
Sex offenders, especially those convicted of crimes against children, are common targets of prison violence. According to a 2015 analysis by the Associated Press, male sex offenders made up about 15% of California’s prison population, but accounted for around 30% of homicide victims in prison.
Welsh, 36, was sent to Mule Creek from San Bernardino County after being sentenced to 18 years for assault with a firearm and inflicting corporal injury, both second strike offenses. He faced sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury involving domestic violence and being previously convicted of a serious felony offense, according to CDCR officials.
Mule Creek State Prison opened in 1987 and houses more than 3,800 inmates. It is the same prison where David Brinson — a convicted murderer serving a life sentence for four L.A.-area slayings — killed his wife during a conjugal visit in November, according to the Amador County Sheriff’s Office.
Cole’s death, if determined to be a homicide, would be the latest in a spate of violent deaths at California prisons.
An incarcerated man died Sunday after a suspected assault at a Monterey County jail, according to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.
Last month, inmate Joshua L. Peppers, 39, was fatally injured after allegedly being attacked by a fellow inmate at a prison in Lancaster, authorities said. Also in March, inmate Jake Kennedy, 32, died from multiple stab wounds at a Sacramento prison.
