Sentences extended for Colorado inmates following deadly prison fight
Now, three inmates responsible for the fatal beating have now been sentenced to additional time in prison.
The last of the three, 33-year-old Charles Porter, received 12 more years Friday. A Fremont County jury found him guilty in February of manslaughter, a lesser offense than the 2nd Degree Murder which prosecutors sought against him.
From left to right, Charles Porter, Turell Lee and Justin Sanders. The three inmates were sentenced to additional time behind bars following a deadly prison fight in Cañon City in 2023.
Colorado Department of Corrections
Porter started the fight but received the lightest sentence of the three. Thirty-five-year-old Turell Lee pleaded guilty last year to 1st Degree Attempted Murder and received 18 additional years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. Twenty-one-year-old Justin Sanders pleaded guilty to 2nd Degree Murder and received 20 years.
Nicholas Hill died four days after the fight in a Colorado Springs hospital. He had turned 33 earlier that month.
Nicholas Hill following an arrest in Lincoln County in June 2019. Hill was killed in a prison fight at the Colorado State Penitentiary in 2023.
Lincoln County Sheriff's Office
According to a case document, eight inmates were in the Colorado State Penitentiary's A-3 dayhall, talking, watching television and playing cards. Video surveillance showed one of them, Alexander Petty, grab a small bag and carry it into an upper recreation room. The bag is thought to contain a bottle of alcohol, per the DOC investigator who interviewed prison staff. By the time staff noticed the bag, three other prisoners on the main floor -- including Porter and Hil -- are laughing, sharing the contents of their cups, and touching the cups together, according to the case document.
Two minutes after noticing that activity, prison staff remotely closed the door to the rec room. This separated the inmate from what was left in the bottle. But also triggered strife between the inmates, presumably for exposing the bag to security cameras.
Petty, the inmate who moved the bag, approached Porter and Sanders in front of a cell, according to the investigator's review of surveillance video. Porter and Petty argue. Porter throws the first punch. Sanders joined in, sending both he and Petty to the floor.
Hill and a fifth inmate started fighting Lee at the same time. Hill went to the ground after Lee landed a punch to Hill's head. Hill never regained his feet. Lee, Sanders and Porter all landed punches and kicks to Hill's head, face and neck.
One minute into the scuffle, Hill rolled onto his back, appearing to be unconscious to the investigator watching the video.
Prison staff entered the area two minutes later. By that time, Sanders had stomped or kicked Hill's face three times.
Inmates were escorted out of the dayhall one at a time and handcuffed. The process took six minutes.
When prison staff reached Hill, they immediately started CPR. He was strapped to a backboard, hauled to the prison's medical facility, and eventually flown by medical helicopter to the Colorado Springs hospital where he died four days later.
CBS
Video of the melee was shown to jurors during Porter's trial, according to the Cañon City Daily Record.
"Nick might have gotten one punch in, in defense of Alex, maybe," Deputy District Attorney David Little said during that trial's closing arguments, the newspaper reported. "Really, Sanders, Porter and Lee just went wild on everybody else - put them on the ground and stomped them out. ....This was the most one-sided three-on-three. If you take the defendant at his words, this is a 'melee.' He called it 'all hell breaking loose.' He broke the hell loose."
Hill, a Limon resident, was serving a five-year sentence for assault and burglary at the time of the incident.
Porter was doing time for robbery and murder, Lee for sexual assault and assault with a weapon, and Sanders for robbery.
The case document does not state what substance was determined to be inside the paper bag or the cups the inmates were drinking from. Nor does it state how suspected alcohol made it into the hands of inmates. CBS Colorado has requested that information from the DOC.
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