SAN QUENTIN (KRON) — A man sentenced to death more than a decade ago for the murders of five women in Alameda County died Thursday night at San Quentin State Prison.
Anthony McKnight, 65, was on death row at the prison for killing five young women in 1985.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the inmate was found unresponsive in his cell around 9:30 p.m. and died just after 10 p.m.
His cause of death is unknown and is pending the completion of an autopsy.
McKnight first entered the prison in 1987 on a 63-year sentence for attempted first-degree murder, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and oral copulation.
While in prison, his DNA was linked to the murders of five women — Beverly Bryant, 24, Monique Davis, 18, Talita Dixon, 13, Diane Stone, 17 and Betty Stuart, 22.
In 2008, a jury sentenced the man to death in the five murders.
He was one of 731 inmates in total on California’s death row.