A Florence prison inmate suspected of killing his cellmate did so to stay in prison, not because of a fight as initially suspected, authorities say.
Roberto Venegas-Fernandez, 43, told detectives he choked 55-year-old Michael Patrick McNaughton until he fell on the floor, stomped on his head and then continued choking him, Tim Gaffney, a spokesman for the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, said in a news release.
The incident happened Nov. 16 at the Corrections Corp. of America facility, a private prison contracted by the U.S. Marshals Service to house its prisoners.
Venegas-Fernandez also told detectives that after McNaughton was dead, he bit him in the groin area to “ensure he got first-degree murder,” the release said.
“Roberto told detectives that he likes it in prison and he was afraid of being released, since he had nowhere to go,” Sheriff Paul Babeu said in the release.
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The two men, who were from the San Diego area, were being held by the Corrections Corp. of America in Florence, pending their transfer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. They were taken to the Florence facility the day before the incident.
Venegas-Fernandez, an illegal immigrant, is serving a prison sentence for a sex crime committed in the U.S.
He was approaching his release date and did not want to be deported to Mexico, the release said.
