A convicted child molester in a Florida jail died after allegedly being attacked by his cellmate and drowned in the jail cell’s toilet, according to local news reports.
Paul Dixon, 43, has been arrested on suspicion of murdering David Oseas Ramirez following an incident around 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Newsweek reported.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Dixon, who was serving time for a murder charge he received at 17, killed his cellmate at the pre-trial detention facility after a verbal confrontation became physical. A third cellmate who witnessed the attack has refused to speak with police.
After the beating, Dixon drowned Ramirez in the jail cell’s toilet, First Coast News in Jacksonville reported. Ramirez’s official cause of death has yet to be determined by a medical examiner.
The sheriff’s office did not identify the victim in its initial statement. However, jail records show Ramirez as having been released from the jail, with the reason for his release listed as “deceased,” First Coast News reported.
Ramirez was serving a life sentence after being sentenced in 2013, when he was convicted of lewd or lascivious molestation of an 11-year-old girl. Reports at the time said that it took the jury just 15 minutes to convict him, Newsweek reported.
