Sept. 28, 2001 — Arrests are imminent in the murder of a 27-year-old inmate last weekend at the Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility on St. Croix, according to V.I. Attorney General Iver Stridiron.
Miguel Lebron of St. Croix died after being stabbed in his cell Saturday by at least one other inmate wielding a homemade weapon. Soon after the murder, officials in the Bureau of Corrections, which falls under the V.I. Department of Justice, said that at least one inmate was a suspect.
But on Thursday, Stridiron said the arrests of two inmates was near, although he declined to release their names as yet. He said that once arrests are made, the suspects will be prosecuted. If convicted they will be sent off-island to Wallens Ridge prison in Virginia.
Wallens Ridge is a maximum-security facility where inmates are confined to their cells for up to 23 hours a day. Stridiron has repeatedly said that inmates who harm other inmates or corrections officers will be sent to Wallens Ridge.
"If we get a conviction, they are gone," Stridiron said. "You can rest assured that they will be exiled to Virginia."
Lebron was housed in the minimum-security section of Golden Grove and was nine years into a 13-year sentence for aggravated child abuse. There are reports circulating that the suspects came from the maximum-security wing of the prison when Lebron remained in his cell while others in his block, which was then unguarded, went to lunch.
Stridiron said he has since toured the prison. He dismissed the possibility that prison staff were negligent in the incident.
