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| Inmates Died Over Drugs, Prison Officials Say |
| By Albuquerque Journal |
| Published: 04/09/2001 |
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Two New Mexico prison inmates found dead in their cells were victims of a power struggle over the prison's drug trade, prison officials said. Preliminary results of an autopsy by the Office of the Medical Investigator determined the two victims were strangled to death in their cells at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility several miles west of Las Cruces. The victims were identified as Rolando Garza, 23, and Frank Castillo, 32, both of Albuquerque. They were found in their bunks shortly after 9 a.m. March 26 while other inmates were at breakfast. The roughly 800-inmate prison, with separate minimum and medium-security wings, was under lockdown for two days as State Police and the Corrections Department continued their investigations. Investigators have learned the killings occurred while inmates were released from their cells into the housing unit and guards were busy moving inmates to their morning activities, said Corrections Department spokesman Gerges Scott. Investigators believe several people were involved in each of the killings and that some type of garrote was used. Garza and Castillo were among gang-affiliated inmates kept separate from non-gang inmates in their own individual cells at the southern New Mexico prison, Scott said. A 1999 independent board of inquiry commissioned to study New Mexico prison violence found that 47 percent of state prisoners were gang members and that 90 percent of prison violence was gang-related, Scott said. |
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