A serial killer named “I-5 Strangler” was reportedly killed in a California state prison, where he was serving life sentences.
A correctional officer at Mule Creek State Prison, outside Sacramento, found Roger Reece Kibbe on the floor of his cell during a routine checkup Sunday morning, according to the Sacramento Bee. The 81-year-old man died in prison infirmary an hour later, according to the report.
Kibbe’s cellmate Jason Budrow, 40, is the suspect in his death, the newspaper reported.
Budrow is a convicted murderer who is also serving life without the possibility of parole, according to the article.
Kibbe was found to have killed at least seven women for two decades and was first convicted of the murder of a teenage prostitute in 1991, Bee reports.
Officials had long suspected Kibbe had murdered other women, and DNA and other evidence reportedly linked him to six other murders in the early 2000s.
In 2009, Kibbe pleaded guilty to murder, rape and kidnapping (one in 1977 and five in 1986) in exchange for prosecutors not asking for the death penalty, according to the newspaper.
Interstate 5 was a common denominator in several of the attacks, prompting police and reporters to refer to incidents as the “I-5 Strangler” killers.
In one case, he killed a woman whose car broke down on the road, according to the Bee. In another, he would have removed the victim’s body near I-5.
Kibbe used to leave detectives a business card, making random cuts to his victims’ clothes with scissors that had belonged to his mother, according to the newspaper.