A convicted killer who was suspected in at least two other murders died in a California prison Monday evening.
John Thomson, 64, was found unresponsive in his cell in the California Medical Facility hospice unit in Vacaville. He was pronounced dead by medical staff around 5:55 p.m., according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
The official cause of death will be determined by the Solano County Coroner’s Office.
Thomson was sentenced to death in San Bernardino County on April 4, 2014 after he was convicted of first-degree murder with an enhancement for using a deadly weapon. He received additional life sentences for carjacking and attempted carjacking under California’s “Three Strikes Law.”
Thomson was convicted of killing Charles Hedlund of Lucerne Valley in August 2006. Hedlund had stopped on the side of 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass to help Thomson after seeing that his car was disabled, authorities said at the time.
Thomson then stabbed Hedlund multiple times with a short blade and stole an unspecified amount of cash, according to the Los Angeles Times.
At the time of Hedlund’s slaying, Thomson was also wanted in connection with two additional homicides that took place in Washington State months earlier, which led to prosecutors dubbing him a serial killer, according to the San Bernardino Sun.
He was arrested days later after going on a robbery and carjacking spree in Victorville.
According to reports at the time, Thomson’s reign of terror ended when two employees from the Victorville Daily Press stopped him as he attempted to carjack a woman in a parking lot. They detained him using zip-ties and held him until authorities could arrive to arrest him.
Those employees said Thomson was armed with a hammer when they intervened.
Thomson was eventually tried in San Bernardino County and was sentenced to death for Hedlund’s killing, as well as the crimes that followed.
According to multiple media outlets in both California and Washington, Thomson was also previously convicted of rape on three occasions.
In 2019, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that placed a formal moratorium on all executions in the state. Since then the state has made an effort to dismantle its death row system, closing the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison and moving those condemned to death at the notorious prison into other facilities that have adequate security to house them.
Prosecutors may still seek the death penalty as a sentence and a judge may grant it, but California has not executed an inmate in nearly 20 years when convicted murderer Clarence Ray Allen was killed by lethal injection on January 17, 2006.
CDCR says it currently houses 639 inmates who have been sentenced to death, otherwise known as condemned.
For more information about capital punishment in the state of California, click here.