Teen Who Kidnapped Couple, Sodomized Victim In Riverside County, Is Killed In Prison 30 Years Later

SACRAMENTO, CA — A state prison inmate sentenced out of Riverside County as a youth for a violent kidnapping was killed by a fellow prisoner, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Tuesday.

Mario Ortega, 47, died following the alleged attack at California State Prison, Sacramento, that began at approximately 10:50 a.m. Monday.

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Prison staff were using a golf cart to transport Ortega and 29-year-old inmate Shunki E. Fleming. During the incident, Fleming "manipulated his way out of his hand restraints" and "began battering Ortega," according to CDCR.

Prison staff stopped the attack. After handcuffing Fleming, an "improvised weapon was recovered at the scene," according to CDCR. It remains unclear who the weapon belonged to.

Ortega was transported to an outside medical facility where he was pronounced dead. Fleming was placed in restrictive housing pending an investigation.

Ortega was received into the state prison system from Riverside County on March 4, 1999, according to CDCR records. He had been convicted of kidnapping, carjacking and sodomy with force.

During the early morning hours of June 29, 1996, Ortega, then age 16, and another teen, 15-year-old Jimmy Arevalo, carjacked two people — one male and one female — while the couple were stopped at a Riverside fast-food restaurant.

Under the threat of shooting (Ortega had a sawed-off shotgun), the teens forced the male to drive to a secluded area. They then robbed the victims, repeatedly raped and sodomized the female, and forced her to orally copulate each defendant, according to archive records.

Separate juries convicted Arevalo and Ortega, and both were sentenced to prison for eight consecutive life terms. The sentences were eventually vacated due to the defendants' ages at the time of the crime, and both were resentenced to 40 years to life.

On Sept. 2, 2025, Ortega received an additional two-year sentence for possession and manufacturing of a deadly weapon by an incarcerated person.

The inmate who allegedly attacked Ortega on Monday — Shunki E. Fleming — was received from Los Angeles County on Aug. 8, 2019. He was sentenced to 42 years for second-degree robbery and assault with a semiautomatic firearm.

Fleming's crimes continued in prison. On March 26, 2021, he was sentenced by Kern County to three years for the possession and manufacture of a deadly weapon by an incarcerated person. Additionally, he was sentenced by Kings County on Feb. 10, 2025, to two years for the same in-prison crime.

California State Prison, Sacramento, houses more than 2,200 medium-, maximum- and high-security inmates, according to CDCR.