Arkansas death row inmate dies in prison of unknown causes

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Arkansas death row inmate Latavious Johnson died of unknown causes at the Varner SuperMax prison on Friday afternoon, according to the state’s department of corrections. He was in his 40s.

The Arkansas Department of Corrections did not provide Johnson’s cause of death and declined to comment further.

Johnson had received a life sentence for the murder of his father, Johnnie Johnson, in 2000.

Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2012 murder of a prison guard, Barbara Ester. Johnson had fatally stabbed Ester with a shank three times and punctured her heart, court records show. She had been investigating whether he had obtained a pair of unauthorized gym shoes in the prison.

Johnson expressed remorse for his actions in a statement his lawyers provided to police, court records show.

“I should have just gave the shoes up, just said to hell with it, asked someone to send me some money and order me some more,” Johnson told a police investigator in an interview after the killing, according to court records. “It’s too late for all that now.”

A corrections facility in Pine Bluff, Arkansas is named after Ester.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.