Coroner Investigates Deaths Of 2 California Prisoners – Including Man Convicted In Placer County
CHINO, Calif. (AP/CBS13) — A man previously convicted in Placer County was one of two inmates who died just days apart at a Southern California prison, authorities said.
Rodney Hawkins, 32, died June 10 and Richard Holesapple, 30, died June 12 at the California Institution for Men in Chino in San Bernadino County. Both deaths under investigation by the San Bernardino County coroner's office.
Both were found "unresponsive" in their cells and pronounced dead at hospitals, said Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Neither prisoner had a cellmate.
There was no immediate word on the cause of their deaths but medical examiners were awaiting results of toxicology tests, which may determine whether drugs were involved, the Orange County Register reported.
Holesapple, who went to prison in October 2019, was convicted in Placer County and was serving a 10-year term for crimes including burglary and grand theft of a firearm in Granite Bay.
Hawkins had been in prison since February 2020, serving a four-year sentence after being convicted of causing corporal injury in San Diego County.