A man serving a life sentence for two murders died Monday after he was attacked by another inmate at a state prison in Salinas, according to state officials.
Michael Spengler, 38, was attacked Monday around 10:30 a.m. at Salinas Valley State Prison by Miguel Espino, 31, who allegedly used an “inmate-made weapon,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Spengler died about 30 minutes after the attack, and Espino was placed in restricted housing pending an investigation.
Spengler had been in prison for two years after being convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court in 2022 of two murders. He killed a man in Pomona and another in Altadena during the winter of 2013. A judge called the murders “surprise ambush” by Spengler’s own friends.
“Both murders appear to have been surprise ambushes of the defendant’s friends,” Superior Court Judge Henry J. Hall said in sentencing Spengler to life without parole, according to City News Service. “They seem to be largely pointless.”
Spengler confessed to the murders to a jailhouse informant, who was offered $20,000 in reward money by the county for helping solve the case.
Espino what was convicted last year of attempted murder after he brutally beat his father with a rock and a hammer and then set his mobile home on fire. He was also found guilty of arson for the 2018 attack.
Espino was similarly convicted for his own comments in the jailhouse, after he spoke to his mother in recorded phone calls about the attack.