Convict Who Killed Prison Lover Gets 2nd Life Term, Plus 13 Years
Life in prison, plus 13 years, was added to an earlier sentence of life and 11 years for convict Willie Cruso Free, 35, who was convicted in Los Angeles Federal Court of murdering his homosexual lover at Lompoc federal prison in 1983.
In sentencing Free on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters said that the convict is “one of those individuals who can’t function in society.”
Free was found guilty in late January of stabbing Louis Ronald Codianni 67 times with a sharpened dinner knife and assaulting a prison guard. At the time of the murder, Free was serving a life sentence for a previous murder of a fellow inmate.
Assistant U.S. Atty. James E. Berliner described Free as “one of the most dangerous and anti-social” prisoners in the federal prison system. Noting the lack of a federal death penalty for prison murders, Berliner demanded a maximum penalty for Free.
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