Scroll down to read the latest update…
Original post 8 a.m.: No one saw this one coming: Wednesday night, just as all of Orange County settling in to overdose on turkey, accused serial killer Itzcoatl “Izzy” Ocampo was rushed to Western Medical Center after being found violently ill in his cell. Yesterday, just as OC was filling up on whatever they fill up before the turkey, the OC Sheriff's Department announced Ocampo was dead.
Um, unless Ocampo got the Ebola virus or whatever's going around the cell block in the latest season of The Walking Dead, something fishy is going on.
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Check out our extensive, previous Ocampo coverage here. In the meanwhile, back to the turkey–and more on Monday, when we're over our turkey hangover…
UPDATE, 12:06 P.M.: Sources close to the investigation tell the Weekly that Ocampo died after eating Ajax in his cell at Central Jail, which would be a hell of a way to die given he has been in virtual solitary confinement since his arrest early last year and is supposedly heavily monitored by OC Sheriff's Department jail deputies.
The department is being understandably tight-lipped about the incident, and results of an autopsy won't be known for days. But Ocampo's attorney, Michael Molfetta, confirmed to the Associated Press today that his client ingested something that killed him after a bout of shaking and vomiting. The lawyer then went on to blast the Sheriff's Department for their ineptitude.
“If you spend three minutes with Ocampo, you are acutely aware of the fact that he has some mental issues,” Molfetta told AP reporter Gillian Flaccus. “They were severe and they were obvious and they definitely were not contrived…With that being said, this was a guy who should have garnered the highest level of scrutiny … and it wasn't done.”
Flaccus then asked the OC sheriff's for comment, writing that they “declined to comment on inmate supervision or the attorney's account except to say jail deputies are required, in general, to walk by each inmate's cell a minimum of once an hour.”
OC's sheriff-run jail system, of course, is notorious for its lack of oversight and wave of inmate deaths. More–much more–to come on this.
Email: ga*******@oc******.com. Twitter: @gustavoarellano.
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