Inmate pleads guilty to killing cellmate

A life sentence has been handed a convicted murderer who pleaded guilty to strangling his cellmate in 2009.

Richard Conner, who is serving a life sentence for the 1991 murder of a Chicago jewelry store clerk, was placed in a Stateville Correctional Center cell with Jameson Leezer, who was near the end of his five-year sentence for car theft.

The 37-year-old Leezer was transferred to Stateville from the medium-security prison in Pinckneyville, after allegedly making lewd comments to a prison guard. Prison records labeled Leezer, described as a member of a white supremacist gang, as vulnerable.

Connor was transferred to Stateville after attempting to hang himself at the super-maximum-security Tamms Correctional Center.

Platek said after the murder, Connor, an African American, came out the cell saying “I strangled my cellmate.”