Two South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) inmates at McCormick Correctional Institution were charged with murder more than a month after another inmate was found stabbed in his cell.
“Jonathan Sentel, 35, and Darius Rasean Ransom, 31, are both charged with murder in the Nov. 3 death of inmate Deshawn Livaughn Simmons,” SCDC officials said in a press release Monday.
Dominick faces two additional weapons charges in the murder, according to SCDC.
According to the arrest warrants, Dominick stabbed Simmons in the back with a homemade edged weapon while Ransom punched him with a closed fist.
Simmons was found in his cell with a single stab wound and rushed to the hospital where he died that day, according to SCDC.
Ransom is serving a 30-year sentence for first-degree burglary and assault in Orangeburg County in 2011. He has a number of disciplinary sanctions on his prison record, including four public masturbation incidents.
Dominick is serving a 25-year sentence for manslaughter in the 2014 shooting death of a 19-year-old Newberry, South Carolina man. He didn’t have any offenses on his prison disciplinary record prior to the murder charge.
Simmons was serving a 65-year sentence for attempted murder.
The 11th Judicial Circuit Solicitor’s office.
McCormick, located in McCormick, South Carolina, is one of six “high-security institutions designed primarily to house violent offenders with longer sentences, and inmates who exhibit behavioral problems,” according to the SCDC website.
The facility has been rocked by several violent incidents in the last few years.
The murder charges come just a few days after 29 people were indicted in the deadly Lee Correctional Institution prison riot in 2018.
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