CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) - A state prison inmate is charged with first-degree murder in the asphyxiation last year of his cellmate at the maximum-security Western Correctional Institution near Cumberland.
The Allegany County state’s attorney’s office said Monday that a grand jury returned an indictment last week charging 56-year-old Thomas Griggs in the Sept. 12 death of 69-year-old John Wyatt.
State prison officials say Wyatt initially was thought to have died of natural causes. Police announced a homicide investigation a week later after an autopsy.
No defense attorney for Griggs is listed in court records.
Griggs is serving a life sentence for a 1980 rape conviction in Garrett County.
Wyatt was serving life plus 10 years for convictions in Anne Arundel County for first- and third-degree sex offenses, burglary, false imprisonment and a weapons charge.
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