The death of an Orange County inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison on Saturday, Jan. 6, is being investigated by authorities as a homicide, officials said over the weekend.
At around 11:40 a.m., Son Tran, who had been serving serving a 50-year to life sentence at the Monterey County prison since 2001, was found unresponsive in his cell and pronounced dead by medical staff, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Another inmate was seen entering the victim’s cell and is considered a suspect.
No staff members were injured.
Tran, 53, was sentenced in 1999 after he was found guilty of kidnapping, rape, oral copulation and assault with intent to commit a specific sex offense, a CDCR statement said.
The coroner’s office had not confirmed the official cause of death as of Saturday evening.
The inmate considered to be a suspect, 50-year-old John Lydon, had been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for attempted murder in 2001. He was later sentenced for two separate counts of murder on another incarcerated person and is currently serving life without the possibility of parole.
Lydon, from Los Angeles County, was moved into restricted housing and tighter restrictions were put in place at the prison while authorities and the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office continued their investigation.