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The 31-year-old New London man climbed down from his top bunk, used the restroom, and washed his hands, but a nagging fact in the back of his mind made him change up his routine. That's when he turned to his cellmate, Kenneth Montaner Buscampeil — a 26-year-old serving a fourth-degree sexual assault conviction — wrapped his hands around the man's throat and choked him to death, a state police investigation found.
A Connecticut State Police report released Monday, Feb. 24, shed light on what happened that morning inside the Suffield prison.
"I strangled him and tried to kill him," McKinnon told investigators. "That's all there is."
McKinnon, who was serving nine years for assault, admitted to police that he liked Montaner Buscampeil but felt the man was deceptive and manipulative. "I didn't really know what the hell (was) going on," McKinnon told police.
After choking Montaner Buscampeil. After McKinnon had choked Montaner Buscampeil, he carried the man "in his arms like a baby" into a common area where other prisons were waiting for breakfast and laid his lifeless body on the table, the report said.
McKinnon then returned to his cell to brush his teeth and discard Montaner Buscampeil's personal items, another inmate told police.
Correctional officers provided CPR, but Montaner Buscampeil did not survive.
Other inmates described McKinnon as aloof and distant, often walking around in a trance-like state, per the police report.
McKinnon was charged with murder and first-degree strangulation, state police said. He was held on a $1 million bond, authorities said.
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