 A man charged last year in a "serial thrill-kill" rampage in Orange County that left six people dead, including four homeless men and a woman and her son, died Thursday after being found sick in his jail cell, a sheriff's spokesman said. Ocampo was found shaking and vomiting in his single-man cell Wednesday and taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead Thursday afternoon, said Orange County sheriff's Lt. Jeff Hallock. The Orange County district attorney's office will investigate the death and autopsy results by an independent pathologist are expected by the middle of next week, Hallock said. His death means that the relatives of those killed will not have the chance to see him held accountable, said district attorney's spokeswoman Susan Kang Schroeder. He also began drinking heavily and he suffered from headaches and hand tremors, they said. For months Ocampo went undetected, authorities said, as a string of killings occurred in North Orange County, starting with the stabbing death of his childhood friend and the friend's mother on Oct. 25, 2011. During the killing rampage, Ocampo visited his father on the streets and warned him about the dangers of being homeless, even showing him a picture of one of the dead men. Marie Middaugh, mother of victim Lloyd "Jimmy" Middaugh, said in a phone interview Friday that she was relieved to hear the news of Ocampo's death. Prosecutors alleged that Ocampo, a native of Mexico, stabbed four homeless men in what they called a serial thrill-kill rampage in late 2011 and early 2012. Ocampo told police after his arrest that he targeted the homeless because they were "available and vulnerable" and that he believed he was performing a public service because their presence was a "blight" on the community.
– A California man believed to have been the serial killer who stalked homeless people in Orange County last year died yesterday after being found vomiting in his prison cell. Itzcoatl Ocampo, a 25-year-old Iraq veteran, had yet to stand trial for the stabbing murders of four homeless men he apparently picked at random and a mother and son he was acquainted with. He was due for a pre-trial hearing in January and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty, reports the Los Angeles Times. His attorney tells the AP Ocampo ingested Ajax; he had apparently been accumulating the cleaning product over time. The death "really deprives the victims and the people of California of the ability to put Mr. Ocampo to death on our terms and get justice for the victims of these crimes," says a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. After the former Marine's arrest, family members said he had been kind and generous to the homeless but prosecutors painted a different picture, saying Ocampo saw the homeless as a blight on society and had set a target of 16 murders. His death raises questions about how well deputies were supervising him, his lawyer says; Ocampo had mental health issues and had been on suicide watch temporarily last year.