Serial killer Ramon Escobar suspected of killing sex offender cellmate

Imprisoned serial killer Ramon Escobar is suspected of murdering his new cellmate at a prison in central California, authorities said.

Escobar shared a cell at North Kern State Prison in Delano with 53-year-old Juan Villanueva, whose death is being investigated as a homicide, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Villanueva was found unresponsive in his cell around 9 a.m., and was pronounced dead a short time later at a prison treatment facility. He’d been serving a life sentence with a chance of parole for the aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14 in Los Angeles County.

Prison officials have restricted movement in the area where the attack occurred so they may carry out their investigation.

Escobar, the lone suspect in the slaying, has also been placed in restricted housing pending the probe’s outcome. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for a deadly crime spree between Texas and California in 2018.

Last year, he pleaded guilty to killing five men and injuring seven others, almost all of them homeless. His first victim, however, was his 65-year-old uncle, who he beat to death with a police baton on Aug. 24, 2018 in Houston. He strangled his aunt days later and dumped both of their bodies in separate dumpsters.

Prosecutors said he then fled to California, where the killing continued. Escobar began attacking people — usually while they were sleeping in the streets or on the beach — across Los Angeles and Santa Monica over the span of about two weeks in September 2018.

All of his victims in California were bludgeoned to death with either a baseball bat or bolt cutters, and all but one was homeless.

With News Wire Services