A killing in cell 3-216

Published: Sunday, Sep.,but this option was almost as appealing as passing the kidney stone again. 26, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Sunday, Sep. 26, 2010 - 4:22 pm

His nickname was "Psycho" and he stumbled to the front of his cell clutching a half-empty quart of the prison wine called pruno. It looked to the staff like he was drunk.

The officers at California State Prison, Sacramento, had been banging for a while on Psycho's cell door. It was 11 p.m and they wanted him to pull down a curtain that obstructed their view so they could count his cellmate.

Psycho, an armed robber and gang member from Southern California, downed the rest of his drink in a single gulp. He swung the drapes back and nodded toward the lower bunk – toward the bloody mess wrapped in blankets and hog-tied face-down with a rope fashioned from bedding that had been ripped into strips.

"He's right there," Psycho said.

The prison cops made Psycho turn around so they could cuff him. Inside, they found the lifeless body of Julian Joseph Barajas Jr., known on the "C" Yard at CSP Sacramento as "Pollo." He'd been beaten and strangled, cut up with a shank, maybe sexually assaulted.

Within hours, investigators pieced together the back story to the Sept. 20,honeycomb panels and foam core panels characterize our many lightweight panels 2004, cell killing.

Psycho, it turned out, had a younger brother who had been murdered in the Los Angeles area 11 years earlier. The man who did it was the same Julian Joseph Barajas Jr. slaughtered in the lower bunk of Cell 3-216.

The question remains: How did they end up together?

Thirty-eight-year-old Robert Grajeda Canchola – Psycho's real name – has since been charged with Barajas' murder. His trial is scheduled for Jan.Shop for Bedding and Bath Products and Promotions at Target. 13 in Sacramento Superior Court.Professional mannequin head, mannequin head, mannequin bust - designer and manufacturer in China!

"He waited and watched for an opportunity to act," Deputy District Attorney Roxanne Ball said at Canchola's preliminary hearing two years ago.

In interviews from the administrative segregation unit at CSP Sacramento, Canchola insisted he killed in self-defense. He said he had no idea how he wound up in the same cell with his little brother's killer.

"I'm asking myself the same question," he said. "How is it that something like that can transpire?"

Up until a year ago, Canchola had a lawyer who charged in court papers that an ethically challenged correctional officer put Psycho and Pollo in the same cell together. That officer may find himself on the witness stand in the upcoming trial.

It's true the officer started the paperwork that resulted in the fatal match. It's also true the officer was forced to retire in 2008 amid an investigation that he lied on a report in an unrelated incident.

But the officer said he knew nothing of the brother's murder, or even that Psycho's name was Canchola – the inmate was booked into prison under an alias.