PINAL COUNTY, Ariz. — The Pinal County attorney is seeking the death penalty against an Arizona inmate.
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Inmate Ricky Wassenaar is accused of killing three inmates in 2025 at the Arizona State Prison Complex, Tucson’s Cimarron Unit. If that name sounds familiar to Arizonans, it is because Wassenaar and another inmate took over a Buckeye prison tower in 2004 in a 15-day standoff that gripped the nation. Wassenaar eventually surrendered.
After Wassenaar was sentenced for the 2004 attack, he was sent to a prison in Michigan. Records show Wassenaar was transferred back to Arizona between 2016 and 2018.
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller announced May 11 that his office filed a Notice of Intent to seek the death penalty against Wassenaar for the murder of the three inmates: Donald Lashley, Thomas Harnage, and Saul Alvarez.
“The decision follows a thorough review of the facts, evidence, and applicable laws and was made in consultation and input from experienced prosecutors in the office, ” Miller said in a news release. “I believe the death penalty is the appropriate sentence given the defendant’s extensive history of violence.”
Wassenaar is facing three counts of first-degree murder charges and an aggravated assault charge.
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