SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - The killer of a California police officer has died of unknown causes in his cell at San Quentin State Prison.
Corrections officials said Monday that 71-year-old John George Brown was found unresponsive Sunday evening.
Brown was sentenced to death in Orange County in 1982 for the murder two years earlier of 27-year-old Garden Grove Officer Donald Reed. Brown shot at Reed and two other officers as they tried to arrest him on a felony warrant.
He was convicted of first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder and assaulting a police officer.
Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this year imposed a moratorium on executions.
California has carried out 13 executions since 1978. Another 80 condemned inmates have died from natural causes.
The nation’s largest death row holds 734 offenders.
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