Officials look into death of Stephanie Brinson, who’s second person in a year to die during family visit at Ione facility

Summary

Stephanie Diane Dowells, 62, was strangled during an overnight visit with her husband, David Brinson, at Mule Creek state prison in California.

Brinson, serving life without parole for four murders, claimed Dowells passed out, but authorities ruled her death a homicide.

This marks the second strangulation death during a family visit at the prison in a year; Tania Thomas was killed in July 2024 while visiting inmate Anthony Curry. Investigations are ongoing.

California is one of four states allowing family visits to maintain positive relationships.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
        13·
        16 days ago

        Compensate their families or other next of kin.

        I’ll be honest, I believe in prison abolition. I don’t really want to defend the concept of life in prison. We don’t need to lock people up.

        But it’s clearly better than killing people.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            23·
            15 days ago

            Yeah, it’d be nice if people didn’t commit crimes. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in.

            You should focus on reality instead of your fantasies more often.

            This exact same glib argument can be used against your own complaints about life imprisonment, so I’m not even sure what you’re arguing for at this point.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                22·
                15 days ago

                You’re the one arguing we shouldn’t imprison people for life. People in favor of life imprisonment can turn right around and say; “yeah, it would be great if we lived in a world where that wasn’t necessary, but that’s not the world we live in.”

                “You should focus on reality instead of your fantasies more often.”

                Ironic how you’re saying this after you’re the one who said “compensation for families makes dying in prison ok.”

                I was saying it’s better than the death penalty, not that it’s okay.

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
                    23·
                    15 days ago

                    You started off arguing against life in prison.

                    I only said that life in prison is less bad than execution. I never said either were okay.

                    Good, I’m glad you can at least be direct about it now. What should we be doing instead?

                    Create a society where there aren’t incentives to do crimes and then focus on reeducation and rehabilitation for people who need help adjusting to life in a peaceful society.

                    We need schools and hospitals, not dungeons. In some cases people might need to be involuntarily placed into reeducation and rehabilitation, but that’s far different from just locking them up as a form of punishment.