A former Indiana death row inmate who had repeatedly asked to be executed was found dead in his cell of an apparent suicide yesterday, a prison official said.

Officials found Charles E. Roche, Jr., 42, dead during a security check, Indiana State Prison Superintendent Ed Buss said. He used a sheet braided into a rope to hang himself, the Indiana Department of Correction said.

Roche was convicted of two murders in 1990, but a federal judge reduced his death sentence to life in prison in 2001. Roche was sentenced to death for the May 11, 1990, shooting deaths of two men.

In February 2001, a federal judge vacated Roche's death sentence, ruling that he had received ineffective legal counsel.