FOLSOM – California State Prison, Sacramento (CSP-SAC) officials are investigating the death of an inmate as a homicide. On Monday, July 30 at 10:12 p.m., a correctional officer conducting a routine check saw inmate Sergio J.Castañeda III lying on the cell floor, and was unresponsive. Custody staff immediately began life-saving measures and transported Castañeda to a medical building. The Folsom Fire Department arrived shortly after and Castañeda was pronounced dead at 10:51p.m.
Officials have identified Castañeda’s cellmate, Arthur Lane, as a suspect. Lane has been placed in the administrative segregation unit. The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office is assisting CSP-SAC officials in the investigation. The Office of the Inspector General has been notified.
Lane, 47, was received by CDCR on January 8, 2003 from Sacramento County for first degree murder and is serving a term of life-without-the-possibility-of-parole. During his incarceration, he was convicted of assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon and received an additional four-year sentence from Kern County.
Castañeda, 32, was received by CDCR on March 26, 2014 from Los Angeles County with a three-year sentence for robbery. While in prison, he received an additional four-year sentence out of Monterey County in July 2016 for battery on a non-prisoner. He had previously been in state prison in June 2012, when he was sentenced to two-years out of Riverside County for injury to an elder causing death or great bodily injury.
Activated in 1986, CSP-SAC is a high-security prison that houses more than 2,100 general population inmates and employs about 1,700 people. The institution houses long-term inmates, inmates requiring specialized mental health programming, and inmates with high-risk medical concerns.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2018
CONTACT: Lt. LeVance Quinn
(916) 294-3012
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