TUCSON, Ariz. — An Arizona inmate already serving 16 life sentences is facing the death penalty after authorities say he killed three fellow prisoners in a single morning — and later openly described what he had done.
Ricky Wassenaar is already serving 16 life sentences stemming from a 2004 Arizona prison hostage standoff. He is now charged with murdering three fellow inmates in April 2025. Photo: Arizona Department of Corrections.
Ricky Wassenaar, 63, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the April 4, 2025 deaths of Saul Alvarez, Thorne Harnage and Donald Lashley at the Cimarron Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors announced in May that they intend to seek the death penalty.
Saul Alvarez, Thorne Harnage and Donald Lashley were killed inside the Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson on April 4, 2025. Authorities identified Ricky Wassenaar as the sole suspect. Photo: Arizona Department of Corrections.
According to the Arizona Department of Corrections, staff responded shortly after 7:15 a.m. to violence near the prison dining area. Harnage and Lashley were found critically injured there, while Alvarez was later discovered injured inside his cell. All three died. Corrections officials identified Wassenaar as the sole suspect.
The account of what happened came later from Wassenaar himself.
Wassenaar told the Arizona Mirror that Alvarez had been placed in his cell and that he killed him before heading toward the prison dining area. He said he carried a large rock inside a mesh laundry bag and used it to attack other prisoners as they gathered for breakfast. Those specific details are based largely on Wassenaar’s own account and reports from prison advocates rather than the corrections department’s initial public statement.
Harnage was serving a sentence for sexual conduct with a minor, while Lashley had been convicted of sexual conduct with a minor and molestation of a child. Alvarez was serving time for first-degree murder, sexual assault and kidnapping, according to a later Department of Corrections death notice.
Reporting by the Arizona Mirror identified Alvarez’s victim as a 15-year-old girl whom he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed in 1998.
Wassenaar made little attempt to distance himself from the killings in subsequent interviews. Speaking to the Arizona Mirror, he said he had deliberately targeted child sex offenders and remarked:
“The taxpayers no longer have to pay for them.”
He also said his regret was that he had not killed more prisoners.
Wassenaar was already one of Arizona’s most notorious inmates long before the 2025 killings.
In 2004, he and another prisoner attempted to escape from the Lewis prison complex in Buckeye before taking two corrections officers hostage inside a watchtower. The standoff lasted 15 days. Wassenaar was subsequently convicted on 19 charges, including kidnapping, dangerous or deadly assault by a prisoner, aggravated assault, sexual assault and first-degree escape. He ultimately received 16 life sentences.
Arizona State Prison Complex–Lewis in Buckeye, where Ricky Wassenaar took part in a 15-day hostage standoff in 2004 that led to multiple additional convictions and 16 life sentences.
Questions were later raised about whether the 2025 killings could have been prevented. Prison reform advocate Donna Hamm said she had previously warned corrections officials about threats Wassenaar allegedly made toward other inmates. The Department of Corrections disputed assertions that its handling of an earlier cellmate death showed officials had ignored evidence of homicide, saying the medical examiner determined that prisoner died of natural causes.
Wassenaar was eventually indicted in the three killings and pleaded not guilty despite his public statements claiming responsibility. Because the Pima County Attorney’s Office had previously prosecuted some of the slain inmates, the case was transferred to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office to avoid a conflict of interest.
Pinal County Attorney Brad Miller announced in May 2026 that prosecutors would pursue capital punishment, citing Wassenaar’s extensive history of violence and the aggravating circumstances alleged in the case.
Wassenaar remains imprisoned while the new murder case proceeds.
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