by WEAR staff | Fri, September 20th 2024 at 3:19 PM
SANTA ROSA COUNTY, Fla. — A 32-year-old man serving life for murder received a second life sentence Wednesday for the killing of a fellow inmate insideSanta Rosa Correctional Institution.
A judge sentenced Joshua Gardner to a consecutive life sentence in state prison after a jury convicted him of 2nd Degree Murder.
The incident happened on Feb. 1, 2020.
The State Attorney’s Office says Gardner brutally beat his cellmate Jose Aparicio-Becerra.
“Becerra was found unresponsive by prison guards with injuries that included numerous facial fractures and a deformed skull,” a release states. “A prison official described the scene as the most gruesome thing she had witnessed in her 19 years of employment in the state prison system.”
