A rapist and murderer who had been on death row for almost 30 years has died after contracting coronavirus. Richard Stitely died on Wednesday night at San Quentin State Prison, as he waited to be killed by the state.
The death came in the midst of a major coronavirus outbreak infecting over a third of its inmate population, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The 71-year-old was tested for the virus after his death and the Marin County Coroner’s Office on Monday confirmed his positive result.
The official cause of Stitely’s death is still being determined, the coroner’s office said. As of late Thursday, 1,347 of San Quentin’s roughly 3,700 prisoners had tested positive for Covid-19, according to