A federal inmate already serving a prison sentence for child sex trafficking has been charged with murder after prosecutors say he strangled and stabbed his cellmate with a pencil inside a New Jersey federal prison. William Vontrail Johnson, 39, of Oklahoma City, appeared in Camden federal court this week to face the single count, which carries a potential life sentence.
According to a criminal complaint cited by the Tampa Free Press, Johnson attacked his cellmate on March 4, 2025, inside the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton. The complaint alleges Johnson stabbed the man's eye with a pencil and strangled him until he went limp and appeared dead. Johnson was already serving a federal sentence for child sex trafficking at the time of the alleged attack, the outlet reports.
Guards discovered the cellmate on the concrete floor of the facility in Cumberland County, lying in a pool of blood with no breath or pulse and what the outlet describes as severe upper-body trauma. Officers began CPR before paramedics arrived and rushed him to a regional hospital. Doctors pronounced him dead the next day, on March 5, 2025.
Autopsy Ruled the Death a Homicide
An autopsy confirmed multiple puncture wounds to the man's head, neck, and chest and formally classified the death as a homicide, per the same account. The findings laid the groundwork for the murder charge prosecutors ultimately filed against Johnson well over a year after the attack.
Johnson appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth A. Pascal in Camden on Thursday to face the charge. If convicted of murder, he faces not only a potential life sentence but also a fine of up to $250,000. Under federal law, Johnson is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
A Prior Conviction for Child Sex Trafficking
Johnson's criminal history traces back more than a decade. A Department of Justice announcement from the Western District of Oklahoma states that Johnson, then 28, was sentenced in December 2015 by U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot to serve 360 months — 30 years — in federal prison after being convicted of child sex trafficking involving a 14-year-old victim, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Western District of Oklahoma. It was that sentence Johnson was serving when prosecutors say he turned on his cellmate at Fairton.
Federal law defines the kind of facility where the alleged attack took place broadly. Under the statute cited in the case, a federal correctional institution includes any federal prison, federal correctional facility, federal community program center, or federal halfway house, according to the U.S. Code, House of Representatives.
Reporting on who is prosecuting the case has been inconsistent, with the Tampa Free Press's published account naming both Jeffrey Bender and Jason Richardson in connection with handling the prosecution. It remains unclear which name is accurate, and the full criminal complaint underlying the charge was not available for independent review.
