Contra Costa Times
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. —A San Quentin State Prison death row inmate who senselessly killed a 9-year-old boy in an Oceanside park restroom has committed suicide.
Prison officials said 33-year-old Brandon Wilson was found hanging in his single cell Thursday morning. He was pronounced dead shortly before 7 a.m.
Wilson was convicted of killing Matthew Cecchi of Oroville in a 1998 murder so infamous that it made national headlines.
Since 1978 when California reinstated capital punishment, 54 condemned inmates have died from natural causes, 19 committed suicide, 13 were executed in California, one was executed in Missouri and six died from other causes, including murder.
There are 719 inmates on California’s death row, the nation’s largest.