State police have charged a former SCI Pine Grove inmate with criminal homicide for the death of his cellmate while both were in the White Township facility last winter.
43-year-old Dwight Darnell Bowen, who is currently in SCI Houtzdale, was charged Wednesday with the January 1st killing of 32-year-old Luis Antonio Santiago. Police say Bowen called for prison guards shortly after 10 PM that night. They found him at his cell window and Santiago lying unresponsive on the floor, without a pulse and not breathing. Santiago was later pronounced dead at the Indiana Regional Medical Center, and an autopsy the next day established the cause of death as asphyxia due to venous obstruction.
The investigation included interviews with SCI Pine Grove staff and inmates, a review of video surveillance footage, and examination of items found in the cell, including blood evidence and a folded t-shirt. DNA test results from cuttings taken from the shirt matched Santiago’s blood, and his saliva was found on one cutting. His blood was also on a wall of the cell and a cabinet. Blood found on another cabinet matched Santiago and another individual, with the major component of the mixture matching the profile of Bowen.
Bowen, who was once on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list but was captured before the list was published, is serving life in prison for guilty pleas to the 2001 murders of two toddlers, ages 3 and 1, in Philadelphia. They were killed in a Molotov cocktail firebombing of a rowhouse after a dispute between Bowen and another man.
A preliminary hearing before District Judge Chris Welch is pending.
