KEITH PRACH

WASHINGTON COUNTY INMATE HANGED HIMSELF

The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 07/20/2007 12:23:58 PM MDT

Posted: 12:22 PM- HURRICANE - An inmate who died at the Washington County jail hanged himself, police said.

Keith Prach, 46, died Tuesday, a day after he was arrested for assault, Hurricane police spokeswoman Mindy Hatfield said. Detectives are awaiting toxicology reports before closing the investigation, she said.

Prach had a history of mental illness and had been arrested for domestic violence, sheriff's Deputy Kurt Bowen said.

JUAN CARLOS TELLEZ

SUSPECTED KILLER HANGS SELF

Matt Canham
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 12/10/2004 01:20 AM

A Utah State Prison inmate, convicted of pointing a loaded gun at a Salt Lake County sheriff's sergeant, hanged himself with a bed sheet in his maximum-security cell Wednesday. Juan Carlos Tellez, 40, who is also a suspect in the beating death of a Carson City, Nev., woman, was arrested in Salt Lake City on Nov. 21, 2003, after he pulled a gun on Sgt. Keith Stephens outside of an apartment building. Salt Lake County deputies were staking out his truck to help Nevada authorities apprehend Tellez. Tellez was being investigated in the death of Bertha Anguiano, 33, whose body was found near Fallon, Nev., in September. She has been missing since Nov. 10, 2003, when her 3- year-old son was found abandoned near a grocery store. He told authorities a man named Juan "killed" his mom and threw her in a truck. Tellez, an undocumented immigrant, has been incarcerated since May for aggravated assault and possession of a gun by a restricted person. He had no behavioral problems and was not believed to be suicidal, said prison spokesman Jack Ford. "Had we thought he was suicidal, we have special cells," Ford said. Tellez attached a bed sheet to a ceiling vent in his single cell, then hanged himself. When corrections officers found him, he was still breathing and had a weak pulse. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Alta View Hospital.

MICHAEL PHILLIPS

INMATE, 34, DIES, IN APPARENT SUICIDE

By Ashley Broughton
Salt Lake Tribune
FRIDAY March 12, 2004

A 34-year-old man convicted of murdering an LDS seminary administrator in 1992 committed suicide Thursday in the Utah State Prison, officials said.

Michael Wayne Phillips was found hanging in his cell just after 2 p.m. by correctional officers delivering mail, said state Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford. He had tied one end of his jumpsuit to the top bunk in his cell and the other end around his neck, then jumped off the bunk, he said.

Officers were unable to restore consciousness, Ford said, and Phillips was pronounced dead at 2:45 p.m.

Phillips, of Logan, was convicted of killing Conrad Harward, 64, an administrator at the Mount Logan Middle School seminary, by stabbing him 41 times. His conviction was delayed by years of wrangling over whether Phillips, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was competent to stand trial.

In 1995, murder charges were dismissed after Phillips was found incompetent to assist his attorneys. After he was treated at the Utah State Hospital in Provo and a doctor said Phillips' condition had improved, Cache County prosecutors charged him with aggravated murder, a capital offense.

In 1997, Phillips pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to a term of 5 years to life in prison. He had been in the prison and in the state hospital in the years since then, and had been housed in the prison's Olympus Mental Health Facility for "a long time," Ford said. Corrections officials had recently won permission to force Phillips to take medication. He was not on suicide watch.

Blood spatters indicated that Harward was kneeling or praying when he was attacked. Police and prosecutors have said that Harward closely resembled Phillips' father, with whom he had had a fight the morning of the murder. Phillips' father was also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religion Phillips harbored deep resentment for, officials have said.

After the fight, the then-23-year-old Phillips walked to a McDonald's and confronted an employee about the Mormon religion. When the worker told him she was also Mormon, he responded with more rage.

Phillips' other convictions included assault against a peace officer, retail theft and lewdness, Ford said.

A prison chaplain notified Phillips' family members living in Utah of his death.

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