CARSON CITY — Officials say a 27-year-old man serving a life sentence for a Las Vegas murder committed when he was 17 was stabbed to death by another Nevada prison inmate using a handmade weapon.
The Nevada Department of Corrections identified the inmate slain in the Tuesday afternoon attack as Thayer Joseph Burton.
Prisons spokeswoman Brooke Santina told KOLO-TV in Reno that Burton was attacked in a housing unit hallway at Northern Nevada Correction Center in Carson City by an assailant also serving a life sentence for murder.
Santina said investigators identified the suspected assailant, but his name was not immediately made public.
Correctional officers' union president Gene Columbus said Friday he was concerned that there was only one guard in the unit with about 160 inmates when the attack happened.