24-year-old Itzcoatl Ocampo, an Iraqi war veteran, who had been accused of fatally stabbing four homeless men in Southern Califorinia, was pronounced dead last Friday after falling ill at an Orange County Jail, CNN reported. Ocampo was awaiting trial but he died in his cell after ingesting Ajax, his lawyer told The Associated Press.
"If you spend three minutes with Ocampo, you are acutely aware of the fact that he has some mental issues. They were severe and they were obvious and they definitely were not contrived," said his attorney Michael Molfetta said.
"With that being said, this was a guy who should have garnered the highest level of scrutiny ... and it wasn't done."
Deputies noticed that Ocampo "shaking and vomiting" in his solitary cell, "and immediately summoned medical attention," the department said.
Ocampo was charged with four counts of first degree murder in January 2012. "The first homeless man, killed a month earlier, was stabbed more than 40 times with a 7-inch, heavy-gauge Ka-Bar Bull Dozier knife," according to Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.
"In each of these cases, the violence, the number of stabbing wounds of each victim, increased," Rackauckas added. He was later arraigned on new charges that he also killed the mother and brother of an old friend. "Authorities say 53-year-old Raquel Estrada was stabbed more than 30 times and her 34-year-old son Juan Herrera more than 60 times on October 25, 2011, their bodies left in pools of blood inside their Yorba Linda home," CNN reported.
Ocampo served in the Marines from July 2006 until July 2010, including spending six months in Iraq in 2008, his service records indicated, as reported by CNN.
Ocampo's death is under investigation "as is protocol for all Orange County Jail in-custody deaths," the sheriff's department said. An autopsy is tentatively set for early next week, CNN reported.
