Earlier this month, ABC15 reported on inmate Ricky Wassenaar being the sole suspect in the killing of three inmates at an Arizona Department of Corrections (ADCRR) prison in Tucson.
Now, ABC15 has learned two more inmates died this week and their deaths are being investigated as potential homicides.
On Tuesday, ADCRR announced 36-year-old Daniel Montoya had died while living in Lewis Prison.
“They explained to [his mom] that he was stabbed and succumbed to his injuries,” his wife, Raychel Brigante, told ABC15. “My husband had so much remorse in him, and he turned to God, and he didn't deserve this… a lot of them are in there changing for the better so that they can go home to their families. And now my husband, we can't do anything that we plan, because someone decided to selfishly take his life.”
Then on Wednesday, ADCRR announced the death investigation of 40-year-old Jesse Alejandro.
Carlos Garcia, who is the executive director of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers Association, told ABC15 an “override” inmate stabbed Alejandro.
“This override program where you take an inmate that's top tier, lower the reclassification number, and shove him in a prison where he doesn't belong,” Garcia said. “These were five killings, five murders in a total of two weeks, going on two weeks.”
Those numbers count Wassenaar’s alleged victims in April, but do not count 81-year-old Joseph Desisto, Wassenaar’s cellmate, who died in November.
Wassenaar told officials and advocates he killed Desisto, but ADCRR told ABC15, “As the ADCRR noted last week, the Department has no reason to believe that inmate Wassenaar had any involvement in the death of his cellmate, Joseph Desisto, 81, in early November 2024. The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (ME) report detailed inmate Desisto’s significant medical issues and noted that there were no injuries to the body consistent with trauma, including the method of death that inmate Wassenaar claimed to have used. Given this official information from the ME and ADCRR’s investigation indicating the absence of any information demonstrating otherwise, the ADCRR treated and classified the death as one occurring from natural causes.”
The autopsy report for Desisto noted there were no obvious signs of strangulation on the 81-year-old but ruled the cause of death was “undetermined.”
“They didn't have a definitive cause of death,” said former Maricopa County Medical Examiner Dr. Phillip Keen. “Does it mean that none of those other things happened? Not necessarily. It's just that they didn't see any evidence of it. There's still the possibility this man may have suffocated.”
