Suspects named in fatal prison stabbing of Riverside County murderer

A man who had been sentenced to 22 years behind bars for a 2013 attempted murder in Orange County is one of two suspects in the fatal stabbing of another prison inmate from Riverside County on Thursday, May 30, officials said Monday.

Corrections officers used pepper spray and a blast grenade to break up an altercation involving three men in an exercise yard at California Sate Prison – Sacramento in Folsom at about 2:16 p.m. Thursday, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said in a Monday statement. Charles Anthony Ross, 63, was stabbed with an inmate-made weapon, and was later pronounced dead at 2:34 p.m.

Officials identified Joshua Kerr, 35, and Nicholas Mangelli, 28, as suspects in the homicide. Both inmates were placed in the prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit.

Prosecutors charged Kerr in 2013 in Orange County on suspicion of attempted murder, with sentencing enhancements for street gang activity, court records show. He pleaded guilty in December 2015 to the allegations, as well as second-degree robbery, CDCR officials said.

Mangelli was sentenced in Sacramento County in March 2014 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first degree murder, said the release. He pleaded guilty to stabbing a man he called his friend, an Iraq war veteran, about 35 times during a 2012 robbery, the Sacramento Bee reported.

CDCR officials did not immediately suggest what might have motivated the two men to allegedly attack Ross. His death was under investigation Monday.

He had been incarcerated since 1997 after he was convicted of first-degree murder and second-degree robbery in Riverside County, CDCR officials said. He was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.