Jessup Correctional Institution Inmate Joseph Soule Sentenced To 35 Years In Cellmate's Murder
JESSUP, Md. (WJZ) -- An inmate at the Jessup Correctional Institution has been sentenced to 35 years in prison in his cellmate's murder, the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office said Thursday.
Joseph Patrick Soule, 31, of Pasadena, had been charged with second-degree murder.
Officials said Soule killed his cellmate, David Stephenson, on November 2, 2018. Corrections officers learned an object was blocking the window into the cell and ordered the inmates to move it. Soule initially refused.
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When corrections officers entered the cell, they reportedly found Stephenson lying in a pool of blood with an electrical cord around his neck, hands and feet. Medical staff tried to treat Stephenson's injuries but later pronounced him dead at the scene. His death was ruled a homicide by strangulation, blunt force trauma and sharp force trauma.
The state's attorney's office said Soule claimed Stephenson attacked him from behind but prosecutors shared evidence disputing his claim.
Soule had been serving a 30-year sentence for fatally stabbing his heroin dealer, 43-year-old Christie Lynn Pelland, 66 times inside a Glen Burnie office building in May 2014.
