Associated Press
GERING — A 15-year-old jail inmate strangled a guard for more than 2½ minutes after he lured her into his cell on Friday, according to a Nebraska court document.
Dylan Cardeilhac is expected to be charged Tuesday in the slaying of Scotts Bluff County jail guard Amanda Baker, 24, who died Sunday after she’d been declared brain dead by doctors. The attack took place Friday.
Cardeilhac is from Torrington, Wyo., and has been at the jail since December on a charge of robbing a convenience store in Mitchell.
An arrest affidavit filed by Scotts Bluff County sheriff’s Investigator Matt Holcomb says security video shows he talked Baker into checking something on his cell floor, then pounced on her when she turned her back.
Baker fell to her stomach on the floor, with the boy atop her, his arms wrapped around her head and neck. Baker struggled for more than a minute and then apparently lost consciousness. The boy continued his hold on her for about 90 more seconds until she went limp.
After the attack, the affidavit says, the boy took keys off Baker’s belt and left the cell. He opened and entered several other cells holding other juvenile offenders.
Another jailer found Baker as he walked past a hallway leading to the cells and noticed several open cell doors. The affidavit says he found Baker unconscious but breathing. He found Cardeilhac in one of the other cells as he was locking the other inmates back up and radioed for medical help for Baker.
One corrections officer applied smelling salts and another administered CPR until ambulance personnel arrived, the affidavit says.
Baker was taken to Regional West Medical Center in nearby Scottsbluff, where she was kept on life support until her organs were removed for transplanting.
She had worked at the jail since June 2012 in both the adult and juvenile facilities.