Inmate gets life for 2018 murder, assault at federal prison in Terre Haute

Jan. 11—An inmate formerly housed at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute has been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to murder and assault with intent to commit murder.

Sentenced was Rodney Curtis Hamrick, 58, the government announced Thursday. Sentence was imposed by U.S. District Court Judge James P. Hanlon.

Prosecutors said Hamrick, Richard Warren, and Robert Neal were all inmates housed within the Communications Management Unit at USP-Terre Haute within the Federal Correctional Complex.

On Nov. 10, 2018, Warren notified a prison officer that he had been stabbed in his cell by Hamrick. Officers secured Hamrick and confiscated a homemade weapon resembling an ice pick.

In Hamrick's cell, Officers also found inmate Neal covered in a sheet with a pillowcase tied over his face and neck, his hands bound behind his back, and multiple puncture wounds in his chest, the government said.

Neal had no pulse and was later confirmed by medical staff to be dead. The official autopsy noted eleven stab wounds to Neal's chest, but the ultimate cause of death was strangulation.

Prosecutors said that in an interview with FBI agents, Hamrick admitted to planning to attack Neal and Warren in advance.

Hamrick lured Neal, 68, into his cell to help with legal paperwork, then bound him and strangled him with a cord. When the cord broke, Hamrick strangled Neal to death with his bare hands, according to the government. Hamrick then stabbed Neal multiple times.

Hamrick then entered Warren's cell and attacked him, grabbing Warren from behind and stabbing him in the neck. Warren was able to escape Hamrick's grasp and protect himself until another inmate arrived and Hamrick left the cell.

At the time, Hamrick was serving a life sentence imposed in 2007 by the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, for using a destructive device in an attempted crime of violence.

He has seven prior federal convictions for offenses including violent threats against public officials and federal buildings, attempted escape, and multiple offenses involving manufacturing and mailing destructive devices — some of which detonated and injured others.

The federal Bureau of Prisons has transferred Hamrick from Terre Haute to the ADMAX administrative security U.S. Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado.

"It is clear from Rodney Hamrick's lifelong pattern of violent crime, culminating the horrific attacks he perpetrated in the Terre Haute prison, that he should never live another day outside of federal prison," Zachary A. Myers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said in a news release.

The FBI investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jayson W. McGrath and William L. McCoskey prosecuted.