SAN QUENTIN – Condemned inmate Aswad Pops, 48, who was on California’s death row from Los Angeles County, was pronounced dead at San Quentin State Prison on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 7:15 p.m. The cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy; however, the death is being investigated as a suicide. Pops was single-celled.
Pops was sentenced to death on April 7, 2000, by a Los Angeles County jury for the Jan. 25, 1998, murder of four people during the robbery of a carwash in Compton. Pops and his accomplice, Byron Paul Wilson, killed Charles Hurd, 33, owner of the business carwash, and three of his employees: Michael Hoard, 41, Shawn Potter, 20, and Jessie Dunn, 36
Pops had been on California’s death row since April 17, 2000.
Since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 82 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 27 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed in California, one was executed in Missouri, one was executed in Virginia, and 14 have died from other causes and one the cause of death is pending. There are currently 731 offenders on California’s death row.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Lt. Samuel Robinson (415) 455-5008
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