Wife was strangled while visiting her husband at a Northern California prison, sheriff says
Coroner officials have determined that a woman was strangled in November while she visited her husband, a man convicted of murder more than 30 years ago and serving a life sentence in a Northern California prison.
Stephanie Diane Brinson, 62, died as the result of a homicide and her cause of death on Nov. 13 at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione was determined to be strangulation, Amador County Sheriff Gary Redman told The Sacramento Bee.
Her husband, David Brinson, had been serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for a Los Angeles County conviction, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Brinson, 54, continued to serve his sentence Tuesday at California Health Care Facility, a prison facility in Stockton.
Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe told The Bee that the homicide investigation into Stephanie Brinson’s continued. He said David Brinson is a suspect as the alleged crime occurred during “a conjugal visit” at Mule Creek State Prison. There are no other suspects in the investigation.
Riebe said on Tuesday that his office has not filed criminal charges against David Brinson, because his prosecutors have not yet received reports from Mule Cree necessary to make a decision on whether to charge the incarcerated man. He said his prosecutors also were still waiting for the completed autopsy report.
CDCR officials did not respond to questions from The Bee about the woman’s death at Mule Creek State Prison.
KCRA was the first to report Stephanie Brinson’s cause of death. CDCR officials told KCRA in early December that shortly after 2 a.m. on Nov. 13, an inmate at Mule Creek State Prison used a phone in a family visit unit to notify prison guards that his wife had passed out during her visitation. CDCR officials said prison staff began lifesaving measures on the woman before medics arrived and took over. She was pronounced dead about an hour later.
Some prison inmates are eligible for “family visits,” which are private and held in apartment-like facilities on prison grounds and span “30 to 40 hours,” according to CDCR’s website.
Inmates not eligible for family visits are inmates on Death Row, inmates with convictions for sex offenses, anyone in the Reception Centers process or anyone under disciplinary restrictions, according to CDCR. Family visits are restricted to immediate family members, including parents, children, siblings, legal spouses, registered domestic partners or those with a bona fide and verified foster relationship with the incarcerated person.
The Los Angeles Times reported that David Brinson was convicted in October 1993 for the execution-style murders of four men during a robbery. Brison reportedly shot to death Robert Marks and three other men on June 12, 1990, in Marks’ garage apartment in Los Angeles.
