A man serving a life prison sentence for a Los Angeles County murder conviction was being held in restricted housing Monday on suspicion of stabbing a corrections officer in the head at the California Institution for Men in Chino.
Kevin G. Roby, 60, was observed by corrections officers around 8:30 p.m. Sunday leaving his housing unit wearing only his boxer shorts, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Officers ordered Roby to stop, but he continued walking toward the prison yard while yelling that he would kill anyone in the yard, according to CDCR. Moments later, Roby pulled out an “inmate-manufactured weapon” from his boxers, prompting authorities to form a skirmish line, officials said.
“Without warning or provocation, Roby ran toward the skirmish line. Staff immediately responded and used physical force and chemical agents to restrain him and quell the attack,” CDCR officials said in a statement.
During the skirmish, Roby allegedly used the weapon to stab an officer on the side of his head. The officer was taken to a hospital for a laceration and the effects of being pepper-sprayed, but was treated and released.
Roby was placed on restricted housing status and was expected to be transferred to another prison, according to CDCR.
Roby was sent to prison in August 1988 following his conviction in Los Angeles County for first-degree murder and rape with force or violence, along with an enhancement for the use of a firearm. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Reports in the Los Angeles Daily News in 1987 and 1988 said Roby, then 23, an Air Force Academy dropout who lived in Glendale, had been convicted of raping and fatally stabbing his 25-year-old sister on Jan. 29, 1987, at his mother’s home in South Los Angeles. The killing happened a day after he sexually assaulted another sister who was younger.
Published reports say Roby later was implicated in the 2005 death of his cellmate, “Boyz n the Hood” actor Lloyd Avery II, at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City. Roby, known as a satanist, was not charged in that killing, reportedly because he was not eligible for the death penalty as noted by the Del Norte County District Attorney.
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin contributed to this story.
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