Corrections Agency Punishes 4 in Prison Officer's Murder

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has disciplined four employees in connection with an inmate's murder of French Robertson Unit correctional officer Mari Johnson in July.

The department has recommended that correctional officer Edward McQuade and food service managers Gregory Cruse and Patrick Roach be fired for violating prison policies. Robertson Unit assistant warden Jimmy Webb was suspended for seven days and placed on probation for four months. The all-male, maximum-security unit is located about 10 miles northeast of Abilene.

Inmate Dillion Gage Compton, 21, who worked in the prison kitchen, attacked Johnson when she entered a storage area. The 55-year-old was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead. She had worked for the department since 2009.

Compton is serving a 25-year prison sentence related to a 2011 conviction in Dallas County of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14, according to the department.

Following the attack on Johnson, Compton was transferred to "an undisclosed maximum security" unit, the department said.

Johnson's death came almost exactly a year after rookie prison guard Timothy Davison, 47, was beaten to death by an inmate inside the Barry B. Telford Unit in New Boston in northeast Texas.