It’s a spin on a locked room murder mystery, except in this case there’s only one suspect—an inmate at the Salinas Valley State Prison who allegedly stabbed his cellmate.
Prison staff performing security checks just after 11 a.m., Feb. 13, discovered inmate George Argueta, 26, lying on the floor of his cell, according to a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation press release.
The SVSP staff sounded an alarm and immediately removed Argueta from the cell to perform CPR.
Argueta suffered multiple stab wounds to the upper chest and was pronounced dead at 11:26 a.m.
His cellmate, Jacob L. Castro, 38, was also removed from the cell without incident, and guards recovered one “inmate-manufactured weapon from the scene.”
Castro was named the suspect in the homicide. He is being held in SVSP’s Administrative Investigative Unit as the investigation proceeds, with the aid of the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.
Argueta was incarcerated in the CDCR on Aug. 22, 2012, from Santa Cruz County, to serve a 12-year sentence for one count of second degree robbery with use of a firearm. He was scheduled to parole in 2024.
Castro started his prison sentence with the CDCR on Sept. 27, 2013, from Alameda County.
He is serving 25 years to life with the possibility of parole for first degree murder.
In January 2015, Castro was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon on an inmate and sentenced to an additional eight years.
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