Suspect in Boy’s Slaying Found Hanged in Cell

A San Diego County Jail inmate who recently reported that his life had been threatened was found hanged late Tuesday night in his downtown cell, where he was awaiting trial this summer in the brutal sexual slaying of a 3-year-old boy.

Sheriff’s Department officials said Timothy Wilson, 23, was pulled down from the ceiling by a guard, who found him hanging about 10:30 p.m. with a bed sheet wrapped around his neck and fastened to an electrical conduit.

He was pronounced dead about an hour later at Mercy Hospital.

Wilson was arrested in August in the death of Luke Mackey, who was sexually molested, repeatedly stabbed, and hidden in a trash dumpster after he disappeared from a grocery-store parking lot in Spring Valley.

Death Believed Suicide

Although the official determination of the cause of Wilson’s death is still pending, Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Baxter said Wednesday that investigators believe the death was a suicide. He noted that Wilson was found alone in his single cell, with the door locked.

Baxter said a guard had seen Wilson just 20 minutes earlier as he escorted three nearby inmates away from Wilson’s cell and to the showers. “When they returned,” he said, “they found him hanging.”

The lieutenant said jail officials had no indications that Wilson was despondent or suicidal. “There was no reason for him to be under any kind of self-destruct watch or undergoing any special treatment for emotional problems,” Baxter said. “And there were no prior indications of suicidal tendencies.”

Baxter also said he was unaware of any threats against Wilson. But he added that the inmate was kept in protective custody, a routine procedure for inmates charged with molesting children, to keep them from being assaulted by other inmates.

But Kevin McLean, a defense attorney, said he spoke by telephone Monday with Wilson and the inmate repeated his fears that someone in the jail had threatened his life.

McLean, an attorney with the Melvin Belli law firm, obtained a delay last month in Wilson’s trial when he told a San Diego Superior Court judge that Wilson wanted him to step in as the new defense attorney.

“Some of the threats may have come from the prison population, but some also may have come from the sheriff’s office,” McLean said.

“He didn’t say which. But he was aware that people were out to get him. He told me one night he was going to be killed while he was in the shower. So, yes, he was scared in that respect.”

The lawyer said Wilson had been moved around inside the jail for his own safety, when earlier threats were received. The attorney said he notified the jail that Wilson did not feel safe there, where he was being held without bond.

“When I spoke with him two days ago, he didn’t sound suicidal,” McLean said. “And I did not feel he was capable of what they charged him with. In the times I met with him, I felt very strongly that he would have been acquitted.”

Jack Campbell, a San Diego public defender who represented Wilson, said his client showed no indications of being despondent. He said he has seen those signs in other inmates, and has always immediately alerted jail officials.

“Certainly, had I thought he was in danger of suicide, I would have done something,” Campbell said. “But I was as shocked as anyone else when I heard the news.”

He said Wilson was kept in protective custody because of the nature of the alleged offense. “This was a case that received a lot of publicity,” he said. “So I’ve always assumed he would not have felt safe in the general inmate population.”

The inmate’s mother, Louisa Wilson of Roanoke, Va., said she recently received a phone call from her son.

“I spoke with my son the night before last, and just about every day before then,” she said. “He was concerned that someone had made remarks about how he was going to be dead and there was going to be an accident. A couple of times he mentioned that to me.

“He was afraid of being in there. I heard him make many remarks about threats on his life. And I think there were letters written threatening his life.”

Taken to Store

On the night of the Aug. 13 slaying, the Mackey boy was taken to a Spring Valley grocery by his mother’s boyfriend, Roddy G. Proctor. Proctor testified that he left the boy alone in the car and that, when he returned, the youngster was gone.

When Proctor told Dorothy Mackey, the boy’s mother, that her son was missing, she called the Sheriff’s Department. About that time, Wilson, a transient living in a van near the grocery, called 911 and reported that he had discovered a child’s body in a trash dumpster at the Spring Valley shopping center.

The fully clothed boy, suffering many stab wounds, was rushed to Grossmont Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Wilson was arrested at the scene on suspicion of public drunkenness. Sheriff’s officials emphasized then that his arrest was unrelated to the boy’s death. They said he was under the influence of alcohol, became belligerent and, when deputies realized that he had several outstanding traffic warrants, he was arrested.

He was rearrested a day later at the Spring Valley car wash where he worked. In addition to the murder charge, two charges of sexual molestation were filed against Wilson.