Female Prison Inmate Is Killed in Apparent Homicide

An inmate at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla died Tuesday morning in an apparent homicide involving another female prisoner, officials said. It was the first inmate homicide in a California women’s prison, officials said.

The victim, 30, was pronounced dead at 10:02 a.m. following a confrontation with the 29-year-old suspect that began an hour earlier in the prison’s security housing unit, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

Thornton would not provide details.

The two women, both convicted in San Bernardino County, were placed in the Central California maximum-security unit after committing crimes at other prisons.

“This has been a very distressing event,” Thornton said. “We are looking for answers.”

The suspect was incarcerated for carjacking and first-degree robbery, and the victim has been “in and out of prison since 1997,” Thornton said.

The victim had been housed in the state’s lone high-security unit for women for a drug crime at another prison, Thornton said.

Although the Madera County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident as a homicide, authorities are not yet ruling it that, pending an autopsy. Prison and other state officials are also investigating the death.

The suspect’s and victim’s names are being withheld until the victim’s next of kin is notified, Thornton said.

Valley State Prison for Women, whose inmate population is nearly twice its capacity, is one of the most crowded facilities statewide.