Robert Thomas Painter was 59 years old when he died on Monday, January 2, 2006, in Lancaster. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died after sustaining blunt force trauma at 44750 60th St. West, the address of California State Prison, Los Angeles County. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department case.
Painter was an inmate. The Daily News reported that he was serving a 25-year sentence for setting fire to the Riverside office of then-state Sen. Ray Haynes in 2001, a crime he said he committed because he blamed the state's sex offender registration law for ruining his life. He had been convicted of child molesting in Riverside County in 1976. He had been held at the Lancaster prison since 2003, in a so-called "sensitive needs" section that houses inmates who are not safe in the general prison population.
At about 2 a.m. that Monday, officers doing a security check saw him lying on the floor of his cell. "As officers were doing a security check, they noticed an inmate. ... who was lying on the cell floor in a pool of blood," prison spokesman Lt. Ken Lewis told the Daily News. He was wrapped in a bedsheet. Officers unwrapped him and called for medical staff, and he was pronounced dead about two hours later. The coroner's office later said he had been beaten to death and died of multiple injuries to his head.
The only other person in the cell was his cellmate, a 41-year-old man serving 25 years to life as a "three strikes" repeat offender. Prison officials moved the cellmate to administrative segregation, and the Los Angeles Times reported that the cellmate was "being blamed" for the death. But the Daily News reported that he had not been charged, and in April 2006 the paper noted that no charges had been filed in several earlier killings at the prison.
His death was the first of several cell killings at the prison that year. On January 24, 2006, another inmate was found dead in the same section, and by November the Daily News counted at least four homicides at the prison in 2006, each committed while the victim was alone in a cell with a cellmate. Prisoner advocates blamed overcrowding and the practice of double-celling.
California State Prison, Los Angeles County, opened in 1993 in the high desert on the western edge of Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley. It is the only state prison in Los Angeles County, and it holds men serving long sentences. Killings inside a state prison in the county are investigated by the Sheriff's Department.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest. A man who is killed in prison is still a homicide victim, and the law treats his death the same as any other.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Robert Thomas Painter could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Former inmates or staff who were in the sensitive needs unit in January 2006 may hold information that could help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
