A convicted child molester who was serving a life sentence at a California prison died Wednesday in what officials are reportedly investigating as a homicide.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement that officers at Mule Creek State Prison found Deandre Austin, 46, unresponsive in his cell while responding to a call of a “man down.” Austin’s cellmate, Rodney Jordan, 29, was reportedly placed in segregated housing following Wednesday’s incident.
KPIX reports that Austin sexually abused three of his elementary school-aged nieces between 2002 and 2006, when they lived in the same home in Richmond. In 2008, Austin was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for rape, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under age 14, continuous sex abuse of a child under 14, penetration with a foreign object with a victim under 14, oral copulation, and sodomy.
Jordan, who was convicted in 2018, is serving a 5-year sentence for second-degree robbery.
Officials have not yet revealed Austin’s cause of death. A motive also remains undisclosed.
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[Featured image: Deandre Austin, Rodney Jordan/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation]
