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| Inmate on Death Row suspected of taking lethal injection of heroin |
| By San Francisco Chronicle |
| Published: 07/20/2005 |
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A convicted murderer awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison has died of an apparent heroin overdose -- making him California's first inmate to OD on Death Row. Nicholas Rodriguez, a 27-year-old Los Angeles gang member, was sentenced to die in 2001 for shooting two teenagers to death while fleeing a robbery and for strangling a fellow gang member and gouging out his eyes before dumping the body in a canyon. While the clock ticked on his date with a lethal injection of potassium chloride, Rodriguez somehow managed to score enough drugs and the paraphernalia to get high. Apparently a little too high. Early the morning of July 10, Rodriguez was found unconscious in the 5-by-8 cell where he spent 20 hours a day. He was rushed to a medical triage area, where a doctor declared him dead less than 20 minutes later. "We found a syringe and heroin, so we suspect it was that," San Quentin spokesman Vernell Crittendon said after authorities searched Rodriguez's East Block cell. Marin County assistant coroner Gary Tindel said his office was awaiting the results of toxicology tests before declaring a cause of death. He declined to speculate whether drugs were to blame. Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said 42 other Death Row inmates have either committed suicide, been killed or died of natural causes during the state's nearly 30 years of record keeping. But none had died of a drug overdose until now. |
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