Convicted murderer accused of killing wife in northern California prison during visit
David Brinson killed 62-year-old Stephanie Brinson at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, about 40 miles northeast of Stockton in northern California, the Times reported this week, citing a local sheriff's and district attorney's office.
David Brinson, 54, is serving four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for killing four men during a robbery at a Los Angeles apartment in 1990, the Times reported.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to USA TODAY's request to confirm the killing on Saturday. The department only released a statement saying that on Nov. 13, David Brinson phone corrections officers around 2 a.m. to report "that his wife had passed out during her visitation."
Officers attempted to resuscitate her but she was pronounced dead at 2:51 a.m., the department said. The investigation into Stephanie Brinson's death by Mule Creek State Prison investigators and the Amador County District Attorney's Office is ongoing.
"The Family visits are a privilege, and incarcerated persons must apply and meet strict eligibility criteria to be approved," the department said in its statement. "Only those who demonstrate sustained good behavior and meet specific program requirements are considered. These visits are designed to support positive family connections and successful rehabilitation."
Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe confirmed to the Times that Stephanie Brinson was killed during a conjugal visit and had yet to receive reports from Mule Creek to make a charging decision.
The Amador County District Attorney's Office and Amador County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment Saturday. The agencies confirmed to multiple other media outlets that a homicide investigation was underway and that Stephanie Brinson had been strangled.
'We're just devastated,' son says
Stephanie Brinson, known by those closest to her as Stevi, was a hairstylist and a small business owner in the Los Angeles area, local MSNBC affiliate KCRA3 reported. She was a mother to two sons and a grandmother to six.
"She was the most giving, kindhearted person,' her mother, Oveta Wilson, told the outlet. "Stevi was literally the glue that held the family together."
Armand Torres, Stephanie Brinson's son, told the outlet that his family was "just devastated."
He said that she would visit her husband at the prison and "would read the Bible together."
"He was in school in there because she was pushing him to try to be this better person,' daughter-in-law Nataly Jimenez told the outlet.
The Amador County Coroner recently told the family that Stephanie was strangled, and her death had been ruled a homicide, MSNBC affiliate KCRA3 reported. Torres told the outlet he believes the prison should be held accountable for his mother's death.
'How could they just let this happen? I just don't get it,' Torres said. "My mom was just left alone, and she called for help, I'm sure, and there's nothing she could do. Given the history that this guy has, we kind of wanted to know how is it even possible for them to be unsupervised?"
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Fox News host Bret Baier pulled over in DC amid Trump law enforcement crackdown
Fox News host Bret Baier was pulled over this weekend in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C. Baier, 55, a political news anchor at President Donald Trump's favored network, may have been inadvertently caught up in a recent law enforcement crackdown ordered by his administration. Earlier this month, Trump announced he would deploy the National Guard in the nation's capital to address what he saw as rampant crime. Baier, who is seen in videos posted to social media handing his license over to a police officer, confirmed the incident on X, revealing he had been pulled over for using his phone while driving. In a more routine traffic stop, the incident was handled by Metropolitan Police, rather than National Guardsmen, though the police department was also put under federal control by way of the Trump takeover. "I picked up my ringing phone as I drove past an officer while driving my wife's car in Georgetown," he wrote in a post. "He pointed to have me pull over- I did. He was very professional. I had to dig for the registration card. Got a ticket and left. I didn't know there was paparazzi." When reached for comment, Baier's rep pointed to his social media posts. USA TODAY has reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department for further information. Surprise! Alec Baldwin returns to 'SNL' as Bret Baier interviewing Kamala Harris In a series of replies to other users' posts, Baier said he had made a point to set up a Bluetooth pairing device after the incident, so he wouldn't need to remove his hands from the wheel in the future. Referencing what some commenters characterized as a scowl, Baier said he did not have his glasses, so he was squinting to read the registration card. Fox News' Bret Baier on election, son's health battle ahead of fourth open-heart surgery Baier, one of Fox's star anchors, interviewed then-candidate Kamala Harris in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, and sat down with Trump during the Super Bowl for a closely-watched conversation. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bret Baier, star Fox News host, pulled over in DC amid Trump crackdown
Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘Psychological warfare': Internal data shows true nature of Alligator Alcatraz
A month into his detention at Alligator Alcatraz, Daniel Ortiz Piñeda faced a stark choice: continue his legal fight for asylum or give it up to hopefully put an end to his extended stay at the makeshift immigration detention camp in the Everglades. The Colombian national, with no criminal record, had the right to remain in the country while appealing the 2023 denial of his asylum request. But last week, the 33-year-old asked his attorney to drop his appeal, preferring repatriation to the possibility of indefinite detention. 'He feels like there's nothing here for him now,' Piñeda's mother said in an interview. Stories like Piñeda's have played out repeatedly at the Everglades detention camp. While it was promoted as a place where migrants with heinous criminal histories would be detained and quickly deported, records exclusively obtained by the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times show it was largely used during its first month in operation as a holding pen and transfer hub for immigrants who were still fighting their cases in immigration courts. Hundreds, the records note, did not have criminal convictions or pending charges. At the end of July, when the number of detainees at the site was around its peak, only one in five of the roughly 1,400 detainees at the site had been ordered removed from the country by a judge, a Herald/Times review of the records found. That means hundreds of men were being detained there without final adjudication orders, despite Gov. Ron DeSantis' claims to the contrary. The records also show that nearly two out of every five immigrants listed in early July as being detained at the South Florida facility or headed there were still recorded as detainees at the facility at the end of the month. During that stretch, immigration attorneys claimed their clients had little to no access to the courts and were largely forced to communicate about cases over recorded lines. Lawyers also alleged their clients were pressured to abandon their immigration cases — without legal consultation — and agree to be deported. It wasn't until Saturday that lawyers for the federal government said a Miami immigration court had been designated as the responsible venue for handling Alligator Alcatraz cases. The number of people at Alligator Alcatraz fluctuates daily and has dropped drastically since the beginning of the month, as a federal judge weighs whether to shut down the site. But for detainees held throughout July in chain-link cages and tents the uncertainty created mental pressure that their attorneys and families say was worse than the prospect of being deported, even to a country where they fear persecution. 'Putting people in tents in the middle of the Everglades is a great tool to make them give up their cases,' said Mark Prada, an immigration attorney. The Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of immigrant detainees, and the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which oversees Alligator Alcatraz operations, did not respond to requests for comment. When the state seized an airstrip in the Big Cypress National Preserve and began constructing a camp to hold thousands of migrants, DeSantis said the site would serve as a 'one-stop' shop for the Trump administration's needs for detention and deportation. Detainees with final orders of removal would be held in tents and quickly deported from an on-site runway, he said. To expedite deportations, DeSantis said qualified National Guard members would work as immigration judges on the site — an idea that President Donald Trump gave a thumbs up to during a July 1 visit. But the plans have yet to be implemented and immigration attorneys have complained for weeks that their Alligator Alcatraz clients have had hearings for their cases routinely canceled in federal Florida immigration courts by judges who said they did not have jurisdiction over the detainees in the Everglades. For hundreds of detainees, that meant weeks of uncertainty living inside tents, where the lights were turned on throughout the day and the only connection to the outside world was often a recorded landline. Attorneys have complained about staff at the facility pressuring their clients to sign voluntary removal orders without consulting an attorney and, in one case, deceiving a detainee with an intellectual disability by telling him he would need to 'sign some paper in exchange for a blanket' — and then deporting him after he had signed it, court filings show. Mark Hamburger, an attorney who has had several clients at the detention camp, said the conditions created a kind of 'psychological warfare' for detainees. 'They're being put to the test,' he said. 'How long can you stand this? A lot of people are folding.' That group of original detainees included Piñeda, who was taken into custody after showing up for a scheduled immigration meeting in Miami Lakes on July 7, according to his family members. 'To have somebody detained like this, pending an appeal, when they have not committed any crimes is unheard of,' said his attorney, Osley Sallent. Piñeda told his family members that when he entered Alligator Alcatraz, the guards told him and other new arrivals, 'As soon as you come in here, you don't have any rights.' It would be days before he could shower, and he said that he hadn't received adequate medical care for an ongoing ear infection and stomach ailment. He was moved to the Glades County Detention Center west of Lake Okeechobee in early August shortly after dropping his asylum appeal. Like Piñeda, the vast majority of detainees in the facility at the end of July had no final order of removal from a judge, according to the new data. That means that the immigration cases for most men at the facility were still ongoing. While the data shows that more than 100 of those detainees had been issued expedited orders of removal – which allows the government to deport them without going through the immigration courts – immigration lawyers said that these can still be appealed in some circumstances, such as when an immigrant is seeking asylum. 'Finality is a big deal,' Prada said. 'If it is not final, there is still a process to be done.' The Herald compared the two datasets, one of roughly 750 detainees from early July and the other of roughly 1,400 people from the end of the month. Reporters also searched for all of the detainees in the first list on ICE's detainee locator system. More than 40% of the 750 detainees in the initial list were sent not out of the country but to other ICE facilities, the Herald found. Another 40% were still at the detention center. Alligator Alcatraz detainees often did not appear in ICE's locator system, the Herald found and the fate of the rest — around 150 detainees — is unclear. Some of them were likely still at Alligator Alcatraz but others may have been deported. The numbers in both data sets are snapshots in time, and fluctuate as detainees enter and leave the facility. On Tuesday, there were just shy of 400 detainees at the Everglades detention camp — far below the roughly 1,500 people the makeshift camp is able to hold. In late July, DeSantis said the federal government had deported about 100 people who were held at the detention camp and that 'hundreds' of others had been transferred to deportation hubs in other parts of the country. The state and federal governments have yet to say if any deportation flights have taken off directly from the site and to foreign soil. Attorneys have welcomed the transfers – which make it easier for them to access their clients and advocate on their behalf. At least two detainees were released on bond last week after they were moved elsewhere, according to their attorneys. One detainee trying to leave the country voluntarily had to be transferred to another facility to be deported. Fernando Eduardo Artese, 63, was one of the first detainees to arrive at Alligator Alcatraz. From the start, he wanted to leave the United States voluntarily, but the process to self-deport was not easy in the weeks he spent at the state-run site, his family said .It was only after he was transferred to the federal Krome immigration detention center in Miami that he was able to begin the process of voluntarily leaving the country. Once at Krome, Artese was deported in less than a week, his daughter, Carla Artese, told the Herald/Times. The Argentinian-Italian was sent to Italy. It's not clear whether the difference between Alligator Alcatraz's promoted and practical uses was intentional or accidental. The facility was built with near biblical speed, completed in only eight days, and from its earliest days, detainees complained of toilets that don't flush, bugs and leaky tents. Attorneys quickly flagged that they had no way to speak confidentially with their clients. A federal judge questioned the facility's operation at a hearing in July for a lawsuit related to detainees' legal access. 'A lot of it looked to me like … a new facility not having their act together or getting up and running in the right way,' U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II said last month in a court hearing. But critics of the facility say that the harsh conditions endured by detainees — and the rhetoric politicians have used to describe the site — are not by accident. DeSantis says reporting about terrible conditions has been inaccurate, but he's in no rush to dispel the narrative. 'Maybe it will have the intent or the effect of deterring people from going there,' the governor said. John Sandweg, the former acting director of ICE during the Obama administration, said the construction and location of the facility makes little sense. It's not near an immigration court or ICE's existing transportation infrastructure. But with backlogs in immigration courts presenting major roadblocks to the Trump administration's stated goal of deporting one million immigrants per year, Sandweg said he believes the purpose of the facility is to encourage undocumented immigrants – whether in custody or not – to bypass the immigration courts and voluntarily leave the country to avoid the possibility of being sent there. 'I think that the real goal of Alligator Alcatraz is to instill fear,' he said. Miami Herald reporter Siena Duncan contributed reporting.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Shark attack leaves American tourist in Bahamas with 'severe injuries'
A shark attack critically injured an American tourist in the Bahamas on Sunday, Aug. 17, island officials said. The incident took place about 1 p.m. local time while a 63-year-old man was spearfishing in the Atlantic Ocean near Big Grand Cay, according to the Royal Bahamian Police Force. The island is in the Northern Abaco Cays, north of Grand Bahama, near the city of Freeport. The man suffered severe injuries in the attack and was taken to a local medical clinic, where he was transported by medical helicopter to a hospital in the United States, according to a news release from police. 'He grabbed my knee': Bull shark attacks Florida man Spearfisherman attacked by shark Police did not say what type of shark is suspected in the attack on the spearfisherman, or whether the man was fishing alone. The man's condition was not immediately known on Monday, Aug. 18, and no additional details had been released about the victim, including where he lives in the U.S. USA TODAY has reached out to the Bahamian police for more details. How many shark attacks took place in the US last year? According to International Shark Attack File (ISAF), 47 people were bitten in unprovoked attacks last year. Four of them died, including one person in the United States. According to the odds of being killed by a shark in the U.S. are more than 4 million to 1. How many people die from shark attacks every year? The world averages 65 documented shark attacks annually, according to ISAF data. On average, six fatal attacks are reported each year, the data shows. Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@ and follow her on X @nataliealund. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shark attacks American tourist while spearfishing in the Bahamas
