The family of a woman who was strangled last year in a night visit with her husband in a California prison said Wednesday that such visits should be suspended until officials can discover how to prevent similar tragedies.
Tania Thomas, 47, was killed in July, four months before Stephanie Dowells, 62, was strangled as she visited her husband in the same installation, Mule -Creek’s state prison in Ione.
The Amador County Forensic Office recently ruled the death of Dowells as homicide, and Thomas’s husband, Anthony Curry, was accused a week ago of murder in relation to the murder of Thomas. It is scheduled to be prosecuted next week.
“You have to do something, and two homicides should have been done,” said the family’s designated spokeswoman Jeanine Red, Thomas Prima.
“I am sick of the stomach that this happened to Tania, but then it happened again a few months after her to Stephanie,” he added, “and should have been avoided.”
Despite the two homicides, deaths during night visits in prison in northern California are extremely rare, said Amador County District, Todd Riebe.
“He is very worrying. He is not precedent in my experience. He is not preceded in the facilities,” he said.
The murders are the first violent acts during family visits in Mule Creek that he has seen in his 26 years as a district prosecutor, he said.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not provided information in response to consultations about whether other homicides have occurred during the visits in Mule Creek or other state prisons, not all of which allow stages during the night.
Night visits are intended to support family connections and successful rehabilitation, according to the corrections department. Inmates in the death corridor, convicted of sexual crimes or low disciplinary restrictions are not eligible for consideration, according to the department.
Family visits occur in private apartment facilities on prison land and last 30 to 40 hours. Inmates have to show themselves for a count at least four times in a 24 -hour period, according to the department.
The families of both women said they do not believe that neither Curry’s husband nor Dowells’s husband, David Brinson, 54, should have allowed visits because they were convicted of violent crimes.
Both families said they want to see the changed eligibility rules and added protections to ensure that people are safe during non -supervised visits.
Riebe said the charges in Dowells’ death are pending prison and autopsy reports. Brinson was convicted in the 1990s for killing four men during a robbery and sentenced to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of probation.
“One thing I want to know is how many times this has happened in Mule Creek and has not been detected,” said Rojo. “If Stephanie’s family and Tania’s family did not appear, the public would not have known.”
Rojo said it was only after Thomas was killed that the family knew that Thomas and Curry were intimately involved and married in 2023.
“She didn’t tell any of us in the family, because she knew we were not going to approve,” Red said.
Curry, 48, is fulfilling life imprisonment for a second degree murder attempt with an improvement in the shooting of his girlfriend in 1999.
The victim, Synada Browning, was found in a truck stop with a gunshot wound in the head, which left her blind, partially paralyzed and without any memory of the shooting, according to judicial records. Curry is also serving a 13 -year prison sentence for a separate car theft.
After Curry left Thomas pregnant, she disappeared and was with Browning, Red said. Thomas learned about the news reports that Curry had been dating Browning and was accused of his shooting.
“We didn’t know where it went,” said Rojo. “I felt relieved, but it wasn’t until I saw the news, and this is when she was in labor, I saw him in the news, and that was what he did to the other girl.”
Thomas and Curry remained in contact over the years because they share a 25 -year -old son, who is in the Air Force, Red said.
“We always knew they were in terms of speaking, but we just didn’t know they were involved in that way,” Red said.
Thomas’s son was informed that he had been killed on July 2, and the county’s coroner determined that his death was a homicide in December, said Rojo, who questioned why he took months for Curry to be accused of murder.
Riebe, the district prosecutor, said Wednesday that he understood the frustration of the family, but that he could not submit charges until he reviewed the prison investigation and autopsy reports, which said he received last month.
Red and Thomas, who had five months apart, grew in San Francisco and were like sisters, he said. He recalled that they shared a room and clothes when they were younger and even had their children at the same time.
“We have always been close. We’ve never stopped,” Red said. “She lived just a few minutes from me. We both help each other, especially because she was sick with Lupus and a single father.”
Thomas took medications daily to control his lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, which was diagnosed when he was a teenager, and underwent regular dialysis, said Red.
Although the disease raised limitations, Thomas “lived his life to the fullest” and “the best he can,” said Rojo.
Thomas worked for the San Francisco Unified School District for many years, and at the time of his death he was working as a mentor for adults delayed in development, Red said.
“He loved to help in everything he did, both personal and his professional life,” Red said.
