Associated Press
TECUMSEH, Neb. — A Nebraska death row inmate who strangled his cellmate after complaining he talked too much died Monday at the state prison in Tecumseh.
Officials said they have not determined how Patrick Schroeder, 45, died.
Schroeder died about four years after he was sentenced to death for the strangulation death of his prison cellmate, Terry Berry. Schroeder admitted to killing Berry in 2017, saying his cellmate was too talkative.
After Berry’s death, the state paid his family $479,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged the state was responsible for Berry’s death because they put in him a cell with Schroeder, who had been convicted of murder in the 2006 killing of a 75-year-old farmer from Pawnee City.
Berry, 22, of Scottsbluff, was nearing parole after being convicted of forgery.
As is the case whenever an inmate dies in state custody, a grand jury will conduct an investigation of the death.