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| Minn. Man Apparently Kills Self in Prison |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/15/2003 |
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A man who admitted killing five people, including a family of three during a random robbery, apparently hanged himself in prison because he couldn't live with what he had done, authorities and relatives said Friday. Jonathan Carpenter, 21, pleaded guilty last month to three killings in Long Prairie and confessed to two in Minneapolis. Officials at the state prison in St. Cloud told the Sherburne County sheriff that Carpenter hanged himself in his cell Thursday night and efforts to revive him failed, Sheriff Bruce Anderson said. Officers conducting regular rounds around 10:30 p.m. and 10:55 p.m. saw Carpenter writing something. Around 11:20 p.m. they found him hanging from bed linens tied to the bars of his cell, Anderson said. 'A suicide note was found in the cell and all indications from the ongoing investigation into Carpenter's death point to suicide,' Anderson said. His mother, Sandra Carpenter, said he had been depressed and couldn't live with what he did. The Corrections Department issued a statement saying no foul play was suspected but an autopsy would be performed. Carpenter, from Minneapolis, was sentenced to three life terms without parole for the April 28 killings of Holly Chromey, 49, and her children, Katie Zapzalka, 18, and Jerrod Zapzalka, 16. Carpenter said he and Christopher Earl, 20, of Brooklyn Park, broke into the family's Long Prairie home at random. When he entered his plea June 24, Carpenter said the two were looking for gas money and picked Chromey's house because it was unlocked. Murder charges were still pending against Carpenter in the April 17 beating and stabbing deaths of William Schwartz, 88, and his 50-year-old daughter, Claudia, in northeast Minneapolis. Carpenter had confessed to those killings, too. 'It's been a very horrendous three months,' Sandra Carpenter said. 'I talked to my son on Tuesday night and he couldn't live with what he did. It was just too horrendous for even him. And he had a great sorrow for the people and his family.' Earl is charged with being an accomplice to murder in the Minneapolis case. He faces trial in both cases. |
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