Suspect in Cellmate’s Death Was Termed Dangerous Before Killing

When Gary Avila arrived at Wasco State Prison two months ago, the 18-year-old was ushered into an 8-by-10 cell that was already home to another inmate--a psychiatric patient who had been deemed too dangerous to share a cell with anyone.

By the time dawn broke on Avila’s first night behind bars, he was dead, a bloody bedsheet looped around his neck.

Inside the cell, Paul Posada paced back and forth, mumbling to himself.

“Yeah, I did it,” Posada allegedly told a prison lieutenant minutes after the discovery of Avila’s body. “He messed up.”

A prison official said Avila and Posada appeared on paper to be compatible cellmates. But confidential prison documents, interviews and court records show that prison guards allegedly missed warning signs that Posada posed a threat, and may have violated prison policy by placing Avila in his cell.

An investigation by The Times also found that prison officials withheld potential evidence from the district attorney. Family members of the victim also complain that they have not been told details of Avila’s death.

“They’ve told us nothing. . . . It’s like we’re nobody,” said Christine Avila, Gary’s mother.

Prison spokesman John Katavich defended the institution’s handling of the case, but acknowledged that the circumstances surrounding Avila’s death may prompt a change in policy regarding background checks on arriving inmates. Had such a check been performed, the spokesman acknowledged, it would have shown that Avila and Posada were not compatible at all.

Avila had been convicted of being a gang member in possession of a gun, a relatively low-level offense by state prison standards. He was sentenced to two years.

Posada, 33, is a career criminal with a history of psychiatric problems. “[His] personality appears to be best characterized as aggressive, paranoid, antisocial, explosive, schizoid and depressive,” according to a court-ordered analysis done two months before the slaying.

Posada had told other examiners that he takes orders from a mythical “devil girl” and that he eats his own feces.

There were more recent warnings that Posada posed a threat, according to a guard at Wasco and a sergeant at Kern County Jail.

On the day Avila was killed, Posada had been transferred from the Kern Jail after having been sentenced to eight more years in prison for spitting in a guard’s face at Tehachapi State Prison last year. Posada was regarded as a “high-risk” prisoner and was separated from other inmates as he awaited trial in that case, Sgt. Gary Knox said. Knox said paperwork documenting Posada’s security status and mental health problems was forwarded to Wasco prison along with the inmate when he was transferred Sept. 28.

And just hours before Avila was killed, Posada’s first cellmate, Rufus Hernandez, was removed from the cell after allegedly complaining to a guard that Posada was crazy, according to a prison report documenting an interview with Hernandez.

“Inmate Hernandez allegedly told [the officer] that inmate Posada was nuts, and he shouldn’t be here,” according to the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times. “Inmate Hernandez also allegedly told [the officer] that nobody should be celled up with inmate Posada.”

Although that interview was conducted Sept. 29, prison officials did not send a copy of their report to prosecutors pursuing a murder case against Posada. Only later, after prosecutors learned about the interview and requested the report, did they receive it.

“This information was deemed not necessary for inclusion [in the original report],” according to a memo from the prison lieutenant who interviewed Hernandez.

The prison spokesman, Katavich, said institution officials would have soon discovered that Avila and Posada should not have been housed together. Information downloaded from a Department of Corrections computer in Sacramento would have revealed that Posada had “single cell status” and therefore was not to be housed with other inmates. Under current policy, Katavich said, that database is not checked during the initial screening process, which is why officials did not discover it until it was too late.

Katavich denied that county jailers sent documentation to the prison regarding Posada being a security risk. He said statements made by Hernandez were disputed by the guard who moved him, and are the subject of an ongoing investigation. As a result, Katavich added, prison officials are limited in what they may release to family members and others.

Avila Seen as Both Thug, Respectful Young Man

From those who knew him, two distinctly different impressions emerge of Gary Robert Avila. Some saw him as a streetwise thug who belonged in prison. Others considered him a charming, respectful young man who had the potential of making something out of his life. Maybe, he was a bit of both.

According to court records and interviews with law enforcement officials, Avila belonged to a La Habra gang, though he would never admit it to police and by some accounts didn’t always play the part. He did not shave his head or “throw out gang [signs],” as with other gang members, one official said. When asked by police, Avila would say that his friends were gang members, but that he was not.

Police, however, did not believe him. They contended Avila was an active gangster who terrorized other youngsters in the neighborhood. Avila spent time in juvenile hall after he was caught carrying a concealed firearm.

Last summer, a month after turning 18, he was arrested in connection with two incidents involving guns. In the first encounter, which occurred July 3, Avila allegedly flashed a gun to threaten a boy he believed was from a rival gang, according to records and interviews. Two weeks later, police allegedly found him carrying a .357 revolver, records show.

Faced with eight felony counts stemming from the two confrontations in July, Avila entered into a deal in which he pleaded guilty to being a gang member in possession of a concealed weapon in exchange for a two-year sentence. The remaining seven counts against him were dismissed, records show.

Christine Avila, Gary’s mother, acknowledged that her son associated with gang members, but said they were boys he had known and played with since kindergarten.

“He was friends with everybody,” she said.

One of those who saw potential in Avila was Chuck Gentry, his shop teacher at La Habra High School.

“I have never met a more respectful, polite young man in all my years as a teacher than Gary Avila,” Gentry said in a recent interview. “He was the model student. I wished every student of mine could be like Gary.”

Gentry, a former Marine, said that he first met Avila when he was a freshman at La Habra High and that his respect for the student grew over the years. Avila enrolled in all of Gentry’s classes, from welding to agricultural mechanics.

Avila applied himself in Gentry’s classes and worked hard to earn A-pluses in all of them. Although the teacher had heard talk about Avila’s gang ties, he never had any problems with him. When Avila was sent to juvenile hall, teacher and student exchanged letters.

“There was something about that kid,” Gentry said. “I wanted to see him succeed in the worst way.”

Gentry even offered to pay for Avila’s registration fees to a trade school in Arizona where he would learn how to repair air-conditioning units. Initially, Avila said he was going to enroll in the school, but changed his mind at the last minute. He was arrested on the gun charges a short time later and then sent to prison.

For his mother, Christine, the image of her son heading to prison remains a searing one. She remembers her son as a teenager who not long ago stayed home on Friday nights and watched television with his parents rather than going out with his friends. Juvenile hall was no preparation for what awaited Avila in Wasco, she is convinced.

“He had no idea what it would be like,” his mother said.

Posada Is Considered a Career Criminal

When Avila, 5-foot-8 and 148 pounds, was escorted into cell 233 at Wasco State Prison, he was greeted by a cellmate who was three inches taller and 40 pounds heavier.

If Paul Aaron Posada opened his mouth, Avila would have noticed that Posada was missing his front teeth.

If Posada was behaving as he had on other occasions, he may have been babbling to himself or carrying on conversations with imaginary characters.

As bizarre as Posada’s behavior was, it was also predictable, according to court documents.

Beginning at age 18, according to court records, Posada’s rap sheet reads like the resume of a classic career criminal, the seriousness of his offenses escalating over time. His criminal resume includes convictions for receiving stolen property, vandalism, trespassing, being under the influence of a controlled substance, burglary, car theft, kidnapping, battery on a peace officer and assault with a deadly weapon.

Posada, a longtime drug abuser who told authorities he was especially fond of LSD, was most recently sent to prison for violating his parole after he was arrested for being under the influence of drugs last year.

On June 21, Posada, who according to court records has Hepatitis C, spat in the face of a guard at Tehachapi State Prison. He was charged with assault.

At a court hearing, Posada “acted in a bizarre manner,” prompting the judge to order him to be examined by doctors to determine his competency to stand trial, according to court documents.

He was sent to Atascadero State Hospital.

“Mr. Posada, upon admission, was quite delusional, confused, complaining of hearing voices and was paranoid, irritable and easily agitated,” wrote Beth A. Lawhead, a staff psychiatrist, in a report dated March 16.

It was the third time Posada had been admitted to the hospital in eight years.

“Because of his criminal record and the amount of time in prison and county jail he has accrued, treatment of his mental disability has been a hit-and-miss proposition,” Lawhead wrote.

Posada, who was being given half a dozen drugs to address his mental illness, twice failed tests aimed at determining his competency to stand trial. He passed a third, however, and was approved for release from the hospital.

In interviews with three other mental health professionals over the course of several months, Posada revealed that he regularly communicated with “a little devil girl,” heard voices coming from a vent in his cell, and made references to eating his feces. All three examiners determined that Posada was either unfit to stand trial or qualified for the insanity defense.

Despite these opinions, Posada, who was facing a potential life sentence due to his many past convictions, pleaded guilty to spitting at the guard and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Evidence Suggests Avila Put Up a Fight

A few days later, Posada was on a bus to Wasco prison, where he would begin serving his new, extended sentence. That same day, Avila arrived at Wasco on another bus. Within a few hours, they would be “cellies.”

There are no known witnesses to what took place in cell 233. Wounds to Posada’s hands, arms, head and lower back suggest that Avila put up a fight.

The next morning, according to a prison investigative report, a guard found Avila lying unresponsive in the lower bunk. There was blood on the sheet next to his head. Posada paced back and forth before allegedly blurting out his confession.

An autopsy found that Avila had been strangled. Posada has been charged with murder and is back in a prison psychiatric facility--for the fourth time.

A guard who was working the night Avila was killed was critical of the prison’s position that the slaying was an unforeseeable act.

“There were warning lights going off, but nobody was paying attention,” said the guard, who asked not to be named because he feared reprisal by prison officials for talking to the media. “This just never should have happened.”