A California inmate, who was on death row for 26 years and was awaiting execution, died on Friday, state prison authorities revealed on Wednesday.
Ronald Harold Seaton died of natural causes at the Marin General Hospital near San Francisco. He was 69 years old.
Seaton had been on death row at San Quentin State Prison since 1989, and is the fourth person to die this year in a state that has not executed an inmate since 2006, and the state has 747 others awaiting execution, according to Reuters.
The state corrections department said that it withheld the announcement of Seaton's death until Wednesday because it had yet to notify the inmate's close relatives. His cause of death is still pending confirmation.
Seaton was convicted in 1989 for the first-degree murder of Willis Paul Jones when the former attempted to rob the latter's home and was put on death row for the next 26 years, according to the San Francisco Gate.
Seaton had confessed to attacking Jones during his trial, but added that he was compelled to do so only after he saw him with his girlfriend who was naked and in a sexually compromising position.
However, prosecutors were able to convince the jurors to side with them as Seaton had been caught stealing a TV, fan, electric drill and frozen spareribs by Jones' grandson, according to court documents, The Press-Enterprise reported.
