KCK man awaiting trial for killing 5 people in 2016 is found dead in St. Louis jail
A Kansas City, Kansas, man awaiting trial in a shooting spree that killed five people was found dead in his St. Louis jail cell early Tuesday, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
Pablo Serrano-Vitorino, 43, was found alone and unresponsive in his cell shortly after 2 a.m. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead an hour later, according a post on the sheriff’s Facebook page.
Serrano-Vitorino had been in custody since March 7, 2016, when he allegedly stormed into a neighbor’s home and shot four men.
Later that day, he allegedly fled across Missouri and shot and killed another man in Montgomery County before he was arrested.
When he died, Serrano-Vitorino was being held in the St. Louis jail awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Randy Nordman, the Missouri man who was the fifth victim. The murder case had been moved to St. Louis in a change of venue.
Serrano-Vitorino also was charged with murder in Wyandotte County in the deaths of Clint Harter, his brother, Austin Harter, Mike Capps and Jeremy Waters.
Serrano-Vitorino had attempted suicide in jail shortly after his 2016 arrest.
He had been on suicide watch immediately after being taken into custody but after several days was put in general population at the Montgomery County jail. He tried to kill himself soon after, cutting himself with a straight-edge razor. He was hospitalized after that incident but survived.
The sheriff’s office did not say Tuesday how Serrano-Vitorino died. But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quoted Jimmie Edwards, director of the St. Louis Public Safety Department, as saying that Serrano-Vitorino hanged himself in his cell.
The newspaper said the inmate left a note in Spanish.
The murder case drew criticism of federal immigration enforcement in part because Serrano-Vitorino, a Mexican citizen, was in the United States illegally for the second time. He had escaped deportation through several encounters with local law enforcement before the killings.
Last year, relatives of some of the victims filed a lawsuit against the federal government alleging that U.S. immigration officials negligently allowed Serrano-Vitorino to remain in the country prior to the the shooting spree.
Serrano-Vitorino previously had been deported after he was convicted of a felony in 2003, according to the lawsuit. Sometime after that, he illegally reentered the United States.
He had brushes with the law in 2014. In one case, he was charged with battery for punching his brother and Wyandotte County jail officials notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But when no ICE agent came to the jail, officials had to release him, according to the suit.
Also in 2014, he was arrested for drunken driving in Coffey County, Kansas. The suit doesn’t say if ICE was notified.
Then in September 2015, Serrano-Vitorino was cited for traffic violations in Overland Park. ICE officials sought to have him held in custody but incorrectly sent paperwork to the Johnson County jail instead of Overland Park Municipal Court.
Serrano-Vitorino was once again released from custody. Six months later, he was accused in the five killings.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in September.
This story was originally published April 9, 2019 at 11:25 AM.
