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California Death Row Inmate Found Unresponsive In Cell, Dies

SAN QUENTIN (CBS13) - An inmate on California's death row was found unresponsive in his cell and later died, authorities say.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says 60-year-old Stevie Lamar Fields was found unresponsive in his cell Tuesday morning. He was pronounced dead less than a half an hour after he was found.

Fields was housed in a single cell. His cause of death is still unknown at the moment, pending an autopsy.

Fields had been on death row since 1979. He was convicted in the 1978 Los Angeles-area crime spree, including the kidnapping, robbery, rape and murder of 26-year-old Rosemary Janet Cobb.

He was also convicted in the kidnapping, robbery and rape of three other women.

No executions have been carried out in California since 2006. California reinstated capital punishment in 1978, but while there 750 inmates on death row, 71 of them have died from natural causes.

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