California prison officials are investigating after an inmate was found unresponsive and pronounced dead Wednesday evening at North Kern State Prison. His cellmate, a man convicted last year of murdering his father in Sacramento County, is being investigated as a homicide suspect, authorities said.
A corrections officer conducting a welfare check arrived shortly before 9:10 p.m. at a cell occupied by Ariel Torres, 45, and Matthew Holverstott, 44, to find Torres unresponsive, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Friday in a news release.
Medical personnel responded, initiated life-saving measures and transported Torres to the prison’s triage and treatment area, where he was pronounced dead just after 9:40 p.m, authorities said.
Holverstott was rehoused in an administrative segregation unit pending the homicide investigation, according to the news release.
The North Kern State Prison investigative unit, Kern County District Attorney’s Office and the county coroner were notified of the death. The coroner will determine the official cause of death for Torres.
Holverstott was convicted and sentenced last August to life in prison with the possibility of parole for second-degree murder and injury to an elderly person after he beat his father to death.
Holverstott murdered his father, James Holverstott, in 2019 in the parking lot of a Sacramento County church, prosecutors said last year. Matthew Holverstott told 911 dispatchers his father had slipped and fallen, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. An autopsy determined James Holverstott died after suffering 20 separate blunt-force injuries to his head and body.
Following the death, Holversott “immediately” tried to obtain his father’s pension and assets worth close to $900,000, prosecutors said.
Torres was serving a two-year sentence received last November out of San Mateo County for possession of child pornography.
North Kern State Prison, in Delano, houses about 3,500 inmates.