St. George man convicted of murder newly charged for killing prison cellmate

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SALT LAKE COUNTY – A St. George man currently serving a 15-years-to-life sentence for a 2013 murder was charged Wednesday with killing his cellmate at the Utah State Prison in Draper.

Mario Alfonso Lucero, also known by the aliases Mario Antoine Lucero and Rocky Lucero, according to information from the Utah Department of Corrections, is currently serving time for the February 2013 murder of St. George resident Jeremy Shawn Olsen.

Mario Lucero, booking photo posted February 2013 | Photo courtesy of Washington County Sheriff's bookings, St. George News
Mario Lucero, booking photo circa February 2013 | Photo courtesy of St. George Police Department, St. George News

Wednesday, according to court documents, Lucero allegedly strangled and killed Julio Guerrero, his cellmate at the Utah State Prison.

An inmate out of his cell for recreation time reported to guards there was an issue in the cell shared by Lucero and Guerrero, according to court documents.

Guards and a medical team responded. Lucero was removed from the cell, and the medical team attempted lifesaving procedures on Guerrero. He was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later.

Lucero was found to have superficial injuries that did not require medical attention.

A medical examiner determined Guerrero’s cause of death was asphyxiation due to blunt force trauma to the neck “for a sufficient time to result in a fatal condition,” according to court documents. The manner of his death was determined to be homicide.

Guerrero was found to have two areas of hemorrhage into the anterior strap muscles of his neck, a fractured hyoid bone and a fractured larynx.

“Application of blunt force to the victim’s neck sufficient to result in these injuries and to cause death would have required a consistently-applied force to the victim’s neck for several minutes,” court documents said.

Lucero has been charged with first-degree felony murder for Guerrero’s death. His bail for the charge has been set at $1,000,007, according to court documents.

In 2014, as part of a plea deal at the time of Lucero’s sentencing for Olsen’s murder, a separate case was dropped against him involving a felony assault on an inmate at the Washington County Purgatory Correctional facility.

Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.

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11 Comments

  • ladybugavenger June 13, 2015 at 11:15 pm

    He does not play well with others-#murderer#solitaryconfinement#tattoostellstories

  • fun bag June 14, 2015 at 12:16 am

    yuck!

  • mshaw June 14, 2015 at 9:20 am

    Maybe he was going to be violated

  • sagemoon June 14, 2015 at 10:40 am

    #solitaryforever

  • tcrider June 14, 2015 at 11:33 am

    this would be a good practice case for the state of Utah firing squad, It would be a good idea to exercise the whole process of picking the shooters,

  • mshaw June 14, 2015 at 12:19 pm

    Better yet death penalty 5 minutes after the trial

  • beentheredonethat June 14, 2015 at 12:38 pm

    But he looks like a nice man. Haha.

  • R. June 14, 2015 at 7:05 pm

    What cutie, his mamma must be so proud

  • knobe June 15, 2015 at 8:13 am

    $1 MILLION dollars bail ( plus $7 ) for a guy that is already in custody ?
    So if a friend comes up with the bucks they can bail him out for a vacation ?
    And what is up with that $7 ?

  • Real Life June 15, 2015 at 10:44 am

    I don’t read Spanish, so I will just assume that the writing on his neck says ” I suck at the game of life”.

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