A jury on Monday rejected prosecutors’ request for the death penalty and instead recommended a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a man convicted of murdering another inmate who had been labeled a snitch.
David Bueno, 44, stabbed Jeffrey Heird 29 times and beat him severely because Heird was suspected of not warning other inmates at the Limon Correctional Facility that a drug bust was coming.
Jurors in Lincoln County District Court began deliberating at 4 p.m. and revealed their decision at 6:20 p.m.
Heird, 40, was killed in 2004. He had been convicted in Utah of kidnapping and killing a Cortez gas station attendant in 1991.
Bueno was serving a 24-year sentence for burglary when Heird was killed.
Alejandro Perez, another inmate, also is charged with killing Heird and faces the death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutors said a third inmate, Michael Ramirez, 34, acted as a lookout during the slaying. He too faces a murder charge.
