A gang member on death row for the 2006 racially motivated killing of a 14-year-old black girl in the Harbor Gateway area and the slaying of a potential witness two weeks later was fatally stabbed in prison Friday, allegedly by another condemned Los Angeles-area gang member.
According to state corrections officials, 30-year-old Jonathan Fajardo was stabbed in the chest and neck at 9:55 a.m. in a recreation yard at San Quentin State Prison. He was pronounced dead around 10:30 a.m.
Authorities said he was stabbed with a prisoner-made weapon, allegedly wielded by death row inmate Luis Rodriguez, 34.
Fajardo was sentenced to death in Los Angeles County in April 2011 for the Dec. 15, 2006, shooting death of Cheryl Green and the subsequent killing of Christopher Ash, who was stabbed more than 60 times. Authorities said Ash -- who was found lying in the middle of a Carson street -- had not witnessed the girl being murdered, but gang members believed he might be talking with police about the shooting.
Cheryl Green was shot in broad daylight while standing with seven other people on Harvard Boulevard near 206th Street. Her killing led to weeks of pleas for peace between black and Latino residents in the racially diverse area.
Rodriguez was already serving 50 years to life in prison for a 2007 Southland killing when he was tried and sentenced to death in 2015 for murdering two gang rivals with an AK-47 about a month later in Paramount.
