3rd inmate killed in Nevada prison fight was white supremacist gang member
The third inmate killed in a fight at Ely State Prison on Tuesday has been identified by the White Pine County Sheriff’s Office as Anthony Williams, a member of a white supremacist prison gang who had been serving a life sentence for fatally stabbing a fellow inmate at High Desert State Prison in 2016.
Williams, who was 41, had agreed to a life sentence without the possibility of parole rather than face the death penalty for his role in the death of Andrew Thurgood in February 2016, his defense attorney Gary Modafferi told the Review-Journal in October 2021.
“This case was part of a yearslong racketeering prosecution of the Aryan Warriors for their criminal activity, including extreme violence, both within prison and our community in Southern Nevada,” Michael Dickerson, chief deputy district attorney for Clark County, said Friday.
Williams was one of 23 members of the Aryan Warriors, a violent white supremacist prison gang, identified in an unsealed indictment in 2019 as the result of an investigation by a gang task force.
The indictment was the first time that prosecutors publicly linked Williams and another member and defendant Tarik Goicoechea to Thurgood’s death, which had occurred years earlier.
Goicoechea took an Alford plea in the case, meaning he admitted only that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove his guilt.
According to his attorney Kristina Wildeveld, he was found hanged just days after being transferred to the Nevada Department of Corrections.
Wildeveld said she doesn’t believe that Goicoechea took his own life.
Tuesday’s fight, which sent Ely State Prison into lockdown, also left 22-year-old Connor Brown and 43-year-old Zackaria Luz dead. All three victims died from multiple sharp force injuries, according to a statement from the White Pine County Sheriff’s Office.
Luz, like Williams, was also among the indicted members of the Aryan Warriors in 2019.
“We recognize that when gang violence occurs within our prisons it has consequences in our community,” Dickerson said. “We remain as committed today as ever to rooting our criminal gangs that seek to perpetrate crime and violence in Southern Nevada.”
Beyond the three deaths, nine inmates were hospitalized with wounds suffered in the fight, according to the sheriff’s office.
Contact Estelle Atkinson at eatkinson@reviewjournal.com.