A Nebraska inmate has been convicted of murder in the slaying of another inmate from Scottsbluff during the 2017 riot at the Tecumseh State Prison.
It took a Saline County District Court jury almost 8 hours of deliberations over 2 days after 16 days of testimony to find 33-year old Eric Ramos guilty of 1st-degree murder, felony use of a deadly weapon, and concealing evidence.
Ramos faces a mandatory life term when he’s sentenced Feb 2 for the death of 31-year-old Michael Galindo. An autopsy determined Galindo died of smoke inhalation after being left unconscious from beatings and stabbings.
The Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, which prosecuted Ramos, issued a statement expressing gratitude for the verdict and the “hard work” of the jury over the past month.
Defense attorney Tim Noerrlinger said he was disappointed by the verdict but that “there’s some pretty viable appeal issues,” including what he calls contradictory statements by witnesses.
Galindo was found dead in his smoke-filled cell after being beaten by a group of inmates and stabbed over 130 times by Ramos and at least 3 other inmates.
Prosecutors called it a “mob attack” mostly captured on surveillance video. Galindo eventually took refuge in his cell, but inmates broke out the window on the cell door and started a smoky fire within the room. Galindo eventually died of smoke inhalation
A second inmate, Damon Fitzgerald, was also found dead following the riot, which was sparked when prison authorities began searching cells in a high-security housing unit for illegal stashes of “hooch,” a crude alcohol brewed by inmates.
During the trial, attorneys named at least 3 other inmates they suspected might have been involved in the attack on Galindo, but Ramos remains the only person charged.
That’s in part because his original trial in 2018 ended in a mistrial and spawned a number of appeals that took years to resolve before the second trial could begin.