Two state prisoners accused of killing four inmates, facing murder charges
RICHLAND COUNTY, SC
Two state prisoners – who were already serving life sentences for murder – have been charged in the alleged killings of four other inmates on Friday at one of the state’s maximum-security prisons.
Denver Jordan Simmons, 35, and Jacob Theophilus Philip, 25, are facing four counts of murder each, according to a news release by Thom Berry, spokesman for the State Law Enforcement Division. The arrests were announced just after midnight on Saturday.
Simmons and Philip are accused of luring John King, 52; Jason Kelley, 35; Jimmy Ham, 56; and William Scruggs, 44, into a cell on Friday. That’s where Simmons and Philip either strangled, or attacked their fellow prisoners with a broomstick and strangled them, according to the arrest warrants. Ham was also allegedly stabbed with the broken broomstick.
Autopsies performed Saturday morning confirmed all four died of strangulation, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said. They died between 10 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Friday.
Philip was arrested in 2013 for the killings of his 26-year-old girlfriend and her 8-year-old daughter in Berkeley County, according to reports by WCIV. He pleaded guilty in 2015 as part of a plea agreement in exchange for life without parole, according to clerk of court records.
In a separate and unrelated incident, Simmons pleaded guilty in exchange for two life sentences for the 2007 killing of 45-year-old Sheila Dodd and her 13-year-old son in Colleton County, according to reports by The Post and Courier during his sentencing hearing in 2010.
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