A 43-year-old inmate from Philadelphia already serving two life terms for murdering two toddlers was charged Wednesday with the New Year’s Day killing of his cellmate at SCI Pine Grove in Indiana County.
Dwight Darnell Bowen, now incarcerated at SCI Houtzdale, was charged by state police with homicide in the Jan. 1 death of Luis Antonio Santiago, 32, while both were locked up in the White Township prison.
State police reported that prison staff found Santiago unresponsive on the cell floor around 10 p.m. He was transported to Indiana Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy and forensic analysis show he was choked to death, according to Trooper Cliff Greenfield, a state police spokesman.
State police reported Santiago also had lacerations and abrasions on his body.
Santiago, of Reading, had been serving 2-½ to 10 years in prison for aggravated assault with serious bodily injury in Berks County, according to state corrections officials.
Bowen pleaded guilty to throwing two Molotov cocktails into a North Philadelphia rowhouse on June 6, 2001, killing two boys, 1 and 3 years old, according to court records. He was sentenced to serve two consecutive life sentences.
