Two inmates named as suspects in slaying at the Merced County Jail. Victim identified
A Merced County jail inmate killed in custody earlier this week was identified Thursday as a 20-year-old Modesto man who was in custody awaiting a hearing on a robbery charge.
Two other inmates have been named as suspects in the jail slaying, Sheriff Vern Warnke said Thursday in a telephone interview.
The victim, Fabian Isaiah Cardoza, was killed Monday while in custody inside the main jail on West 22nd Street in Merced, the sheriff confirmed.
Detectives will seek murder charges in the case against 27-year-old Santiago Martinez and 24-year-old Angel Guzman, Warnke said.
The sheriff said it was too early in the investigation to comment on a motive for the slaying or to say exactly how Cardoza was killed. Warnke said investigators have not ruled out the possibility of seeking charges against a third inmate in connection with the death but declined to elaborate. The sheriff also said it was too early to comment on whether the slaying was captured on jail surveillance video, saying he needed to withhold that information to protect the investigation.
Warnke said sheriff's detectives plan to file the case in the coming days with the Merced County District Attorney's Office.
According to jail records, Cardoza had been in custody since May 2 on a robbery charge. He had pleaded not guilty, according to court records.
Martinez, who investigators described as the "main suspect" in the jail homicide, had been serving state prison time in connection with a 2010 homicide in Merced County. Martinez pleaded no contest in connection with the death of Michael Ramirez, who was shot and killed on Acacia Court in Atwater.
Martinez last year was transferred back to Merced County from Folsom State Prison to face new criminal charges in connection with one of the largest street-gang cases in the county's history, Warnke said. Martinez was one of more than 50 suspected gang members charged with criminal conspiracy in connection with Operation Scrapbook, a large-scale wiretap case that targeted Sureno gang members operating under the Mexican Mafia.
Martinez has pleaded not guilty in the 2017 case, court records show.
Jail records indicate Guzman had been in custody in Merced since September 2017 on an attempted murder allegation. Details of the arrest were not available Thursday.
This story was originally published June 21, 2018 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Two inmates named as suspects in slaying at the Merced County Jail. Victim identified."