LANCASTER, CA — A 45-year-old man doing life without parole for killing his father and two other people in Culver City almost 10 years ago is suspected of killing his cellmate at California State Prison, Los Angeles County in Lancaster, officials said Tuesday.
Inmate Francisco Perez, 32, was found unresponsive around 1:45 a.m. Saturday during a security check of his cell, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Despite attempts to save him, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Juan Saucedo, his cellmate, was cuffed and removed from the cell and has been put in restricted house while the prison's Investigative Services Unit and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office investigate the apparent homicide.
Saucedo was turned over to the CDCR on Feb. 20, 2020, after he was sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder with enhancements for intentional discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury or death.
Saucedo was also sentenced on Oct. 11, 2023 in San Luis Obispo County, to four years for possession of a controlled substance while in prison.
Perez was placed in CDCR custody on Feb. 4, 2016 after being sentenced in San Diego County to 14 years in prison for assault with a deadly weapon as a second striker, with enhancements for a prior felony conviction of a serious offense and for inflicting great bodily injury.
He was also given a one-year, four-months sentence on Jan. 4, 2016, for battery on emergency personnel as a second striker, and on March 6, 2020 he was sentenced in Kern County to one year, four months in prison for resisting or deterring an officer with threat or violence, an offense he committed while incarcerated.
Saucedo was convicted of killing his 67-year-old father and two other men and trying to kill his father's girlfriend in Culver City on Sept. 3, 2017.
He pleaded guilty to the killings of Jesus Estevez Martinez, 27, and Arturo Canela Pulido, 47, in Lennox, and the attempted murder of another man, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
Saucedo fatally shot his father and wounded his father's girlfriend after exchanging words with his father, according to the District Attorney's Office.
He fled from the home in Culver City, carjacked Martinez, forced him to drive to Lennox, fatally shot him, then went into another residence and fatally shot Pulido.
After that shooting, Saucedo shot a man driving by, according to the District Attorney's Office.
He was arrested that day by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies
Prosecutors had not decided whether to seek the death penalty against Saucedo before he entered his plea.
City News Service
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