Ricky Wassenaar admitted to killing three fellow inmates at a Tucson state prison in April—and claimed a fourth murder months earlier—but despite his confessions and apparent video evidence, prosecutors have yet to charge him.
Wassenaar, 62, reportedly warned both prison officials and advocates that he would kill anyone placed in his cell. He followed through on that threat, beginning with the death of his cellmate Joseph DeSisto, 81, last November. Though Wassenaar described the killing in detail, an autopsy couldn’t confirm it as a homicide, and he wasn’t charged.
Then on April 4, prison staff placed Saul Alvarez—a convicted rapist and murderer—in Wassenaar’s cell. Wassenaar later claimed he strangled Alvarez and stabbed him through the eye. He then went onto the yard with a rock in a laundry bag and attacked other prisoners, killing Thorne Harnage and Donald Lashley, and injuring a fourth…