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| California Jail Inmate's Death 'Suspicious' |
| By Modesto Bee |
| Published: 06/05/2003 |
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A jail inmate's death has been classified as 'suspicious,' with officials saying the man suffered head injuries. 'It wouldn't surprise me if it leads to a homicide investigation,' Merced County Sheriff Mark Pazin said last week. The inmate, Francisco Picaso Perea, 39, had been held in the main jail on West 22nd Street. He died on the evening of May 27. The sheriff said there was no connection between the death and an escape attempt a day earlier at the Sandy Mush jail. In that incident, prisoners in Dorm 602 tried to bust through a steel door, using an 8-foot section of cast-iron pipe ripped from a utility closet. Officers thwarted the escape after receiving a tip from an inmate in another dorm. Pazin said the informant was safe, though the sheriff declined to say where he was being held. Dorm 602 housed 20 men at the time of the escape attempt. Officials separated the men afterward. On May 28, Pazin said investigators were looking at three of the inmates for alleged involvement in the escape attempt, but no charges had been filed. Perea was pronounced dead about 6:30 p.m. May 27 at Mercy Medical Center Merced, Community Campus. Pazin said an officer heard a commotion in a maximum-security cellblock about 6 p.m., went to investigate and found Perea unconscious. He was lying on the floor of a cell that he shared with seven others. The cellmates were not cooperating with investigators, Pazin said. The cell is in a part of the jail without video cameras. Perea's body showed no signs of stab or puncture wounds, Pazin said. 'There was some trauma to the head,' the sheriff said, but he would not describe the injuries. An autopsy was scheduled for May 30 and Pazin said preliminary results could be available within 24 hours. Perea, a laborer, has been held in the main jail since July 13 when he was booked on charges of making terrorist threats, false imprisonment, battery on a spouse and sexual assault on a child. |
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