A 62-year-old man incarcerated at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran is dead, and California corrections officials are now investigating his death as a homicide. Louis T. Jackson was found unresponsive in his cell, and his cellmate, 34-year-old Derek E. Dunlap, is suspected in the killing.
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, custody staff observed Jackson unresponsive in his cell on Oct. 24 at 6:46 a.m. and immediately activated 911 while initiating life-saving measures. A conflicting account from MyNewsLA.com places the discovery at about 6:45 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25. The discrepancy in dates has not been resolved in available reporting.
Dunlap, who shared the cell with Jackson, is suspected of killing him, according to KRON4. Prison staff found Jackson unresponsive just before 7 a.m. on Oct. 24, and he was pronounced deceased, the station reports. Dunlap was placed in a restricted cell pending separate investigations by the facility's Investigative Services Unit and the Kings County District Attorney's Office.
A Cellmate Already Serving Life for Murder
Dunlap was not a stranger to violent crime before his placement at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility. He was previously found guilty of murder in Solano County in 2023 and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, per the same KRON4 report. No additional detail on the circumstances of that conviction was included in the available reporting.
Jackson, for his part, had been serving time under California's three-strikes law. He was sentenced in 1996 to four years for second-degree burglary as a second striker, and separately to life in prison with the possibility of parole for possession of a deadly weapon in prison as a third striker, according to MyNewsLA.com's reporting.
Facility Houses Thousands Across Security Levels
The Substance Abuse Treatment Facility where both men were housed holds 5,200 minimum, medium, high, and maximum-security male inmates, the KRON4 report notes. It remains unclear what specific classification or housing unit Jackson and Dunlap were assigned to within the facility.
The investigation into Jackson's death remains active, with both CDCR's internal investigative unit and the Kings County District Attorney's Office examining the case. No charges have yet been confirmed in connection with Jackson's death, and no cause or manner of death beyond the homicide classification has been made public.
