Serial Killer Dies At San Quentin State Prison

SAN QUENTIN, CA — A serial killer who murdered two of his wives died last week at San Quentin State Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Monday.

Corrections officials said Phillip Jablonski, 73, was found unresponsive in his cell at 1:10 p.m. Friday and was pronounced dead 20 minutes later. His cause of death is pending autopsy results.

A San Mateo County jury sentenced Jablonski to death in 1994 for the first-degree murders of his wife, Carol Spadoni, 46, and her mother, Eva Petersen, 72. Spadoni had married Jablonski at San Quentin while he was in prison for murdering a previous wife, Linda Kimball, in 1978, according to court records and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He was also convicted of the 1991 murders of Fathyma Vann, 38, in Indio, California, and Margie Rogers, 58, in Grand County, Utah, CBS SF reported.

More people die from natural causes or by suicide than by execution on California's death row.

Since 1978, when California reinstated the death penalty, 82 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 27 have committed suicide and 13 have been executed in the state, while one was executed in Missouri and another was executed in Virginia, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Another 14 inmates have died from other causes and five – including Jablonski – are pending a cause of death.

There are currently 728 death row inmates in the state.

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