Three death row inmates in San Quentin die of COVID-19 amid growing outbreak

A third man on death row at San Quentin Prison died of complications from COVID-19 on Saturday, a day after the virus claimed the lives of two others.

The three deaths come amid a growing outbreak at the Marin County facility, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced.

Dewayne Michael Carey, 59, died at an outside hospital, the agency announced. He had been on death row since 1996, after being convicted of first-degree murder in Los Angeles County.

Scott Thomas Erskine, 57, who had been on death row since 2004, and Manuel Machado Alvarez, 59, on death row since 1989, both died Friday at outside hospitals, the department said.

Details on the exact location where the three died were not immediately available.

There have been 1,408 COVID-19 cases at San Quentin, including 944 in the past 14 days, a massive outbreak that Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a “deep area of focus and concern.”

Newsom said his team would consider releasing high-risk inmates and those close to finishing their sentence.

There have been 1,012 cases at the Chuckawalla Valley State Prison and 907 at the California Institution for Men in Chino, where 16 people have died from the virus.

Late last month, the state transferred five inmates from San Quentin to Seton Medical Center in Daly City, where the state had an agreement with the hospital to provide additional beds for COVID-19 patients. It’s unclear if Erskine, Alvarez and Carey were among those transferred to that hospital.

Erskine had been imprisoned since 1994 on charges including oral copulation with force, penetration with a foreign object, rape and possession of a firearm by an ex-felon. He was sentenced to death in San Diego County in 2004 for the 1993 murders of Charles Keever, 13, and Jonathon Sellers, 9, who were found dead after riding their bicycles to the Otay Riverbed in San Diego County.

Alvarez was sentenced to death in Sacramento County in 1989 after he raped a 38-year-old woman, fled in a stolen car, fatally wounded a 35-year-old man while attempting to rob him and stealing a car from a 78-yearold woman after knocking her unconscious, all over a four-day period. He was arrested 12 days later in Mississippi after fleeing California.

There have been 5,280 cases and 24 COVID-19 deaths in California prisons, a ratio of 47.1 cases per 1,000 people; the statewide rate is 6.2 cases per 1,000 people.

The state has 721 prisoners on death row.