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Second inmate killed at California prison

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Prisoner rights groups say overcrowding may have been a factor in the deaths of two inmates in a cellblock at California's Lancaster state prison this month.

Richard Ponton, 36, a convicted killer, was found dead with a pillow over his head Tuesday, two weeks after Robert Painter, 59, an arsonist and sex offender, was beaten to death, The Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

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Painter's body had been stuffed under a bottom bunk wrapped in a bed sheet. Prison officials believe he bled to death.

The newspaper said both deaths occurred in a segregation unit for prisoners that require extra security from the prison's 4,500-inmate general population. The Los Angeles County prison opened in 1993 and each cellblock has three guards to watch 200 prisoners.

Prisoner rights advocates said two deaths on the same cellblock illustrate the danger of double-celling potentially violent prisoners.

"The deaths are due to overcrowding," Cayenne Bird, whose son served a sentence at Lancaster, told the Times.

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