Corcoran prisoner arrested in death of cellmate; officials detail alleged slaying

An Imperial County man was arrested at Corcoran State Prison on Thursday night on suspicion of killing his cellmate..

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials reported that Adrian Rodriguez Jr. 44, of Riverside County, was battered in the unit he shared with Daniel Santos, 29. Officers interceded with pepper spray to stop the attack and CPR was initiated immediately afterward, but Rodriguez died of his injuries.

The Kings County Coroner will determine the cause of death in the homicide.

Rodriguez has been in state custody since 2007, when he began serving a three-year sentence for attempting to evade a peace officer. He was sentenced to nine additional years in 2009 for assault with a deadly weapon on another prisoner in a Kings County case, and then was found guilty in Del Norte County in 2013 of possession of a deadly weapon and given two additional years.

Santos was sent to prison for seven years in 2018 for discharging a firearm from an inhabited dwelling, vehicle or aircraft.

The Corcoran prison houses approximately 3,300 minimum-, medium-, maximum- and high-security custody inmates.