SAN ANTONIO – A capital murder suspect killed himself in his Bexar County jail cell Saturday morning, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said.
The sheriff’s office said Jonathan Campos hanged himself as he awaited trial for the shooting death of 7-year-old Iris Rodriguez.
Jail guards found the 22-year-old inmate in his cell near death just before 8:30 a.m.
“He had attempted to kill himself. By the time they were able to have medical in there, he had already passed away,” said James Keith, Bexar County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson.
Keith said guards had just checked on Campos an hour earlier, and he showed no signs of having suicidal tendencies.
“Anytime you have a situation like this, where someone takes their life, you have to go back and see how did this happen,” Keith said. “The reality is we have roughly 3,800 inmates who are in our jail today. These are people who are there at the worst point in their life."
Campos was charged with capital murder in June for Rodriguez’s death. Rodriguez was shot and killed while walking with her mother along San Fernando Street on the city’s West Side.
Campos maintained he was innocent, but police said otherwise.
"We think we've identified the shooter as Jonathan Campos, who is an individual we arrested the other day. The other three people are believed to be with him,” Sgt. Jesse Salame, a San Antonio Police Department spokesperson, said in a story KSAT 12 previously aired.
“It’s just a bad situation all the way around,” Keith said. “You’ve got a young girl whose life was cut short, and now you've got a person who may have been responsible. And we may never know why he did what he did. We’re just hoping the family of this little girl and the family of this inmate can find some sort of peace."
The other three men accused in the shooting death of Iris Rodriguez are all charged with capital murder.