Inmate Awaiting Trial for Murder Wounds Left Arm

A 19-year-old Huntington Beach man awaiting a second trial on charges he stabbed and bludgeoned to death a woman postal carrier was rushed from his cell at the Orange County Jail to the UCI Medical Center Thursday night with what appeared to be a self-inflicted wound in his left arm.

Gabriel Deluca, whose conviction last year was thrown out by a Superior Court judge on technical grounds, was returned to the jail’s medical isolation section, said sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Richard Olson.

Olson said Deluca was found “laughing and covered with blood” standing in front of his cell after other inmates yelled “man down,” the standard line for a medical problem at the jail. Deluca was treated for a 1 1/2-inch cut just below his left elbow, Olson said.