FOLSOM – A 45-year-old man serving a life sentence for crimes committed in San Mateo County is now a suspect in a slaying at a prison in Sacramento, according to authorities.
Around noon Thursday, guards at California State Prison, Sacramento found 38-year-old Tou Thao unresponsive on the floor of the cell he shared with Jose Negrete, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a news release Friday.
Thao was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later.
Officials identified Negrete as the suspect in Thaos death. Negrete has since been placed in segregated housing while officials conduct an investigation, according to the CDCR.
Negrete was turned over to the CDCR on Jan. 15, 1997, to serve a life sentence with the possibility of parole for sodomy with force, kidnapping, sexual battery, attempted penetration with a foreign object, sodomy in concert with force and attempted oral copulation.
Thao was received by the CDCR on May 20, 2016, from Butte County to serve a six-year sentence for second-degree robbery with force likely to produce great bodily injury.
