Inmate on bashing cellmate's head: 'He wouldn't die'

A man told investigators he struck his new prison cellmate multiple times in the head with a cinder block, then hit him some more because he hadn't died.

Casey Pigge, 29, of Chillicothe, pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated murder in connection with the February 2016 death of his cellmate, Luther Wade of Springfield, Ohio. Wade was 26.

Pigge said he blindfolded Wade to show him a card trick on Feb. 22, 2016, and then used a cinder block from his Lebanon Correctional Institution cell wall to hit Wade over the head several times, according to a news release from the office of Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell.

Wade "would not die so I picked up the brick and hit him again, hit him again. He wouldn't die," Pigge told investigators. He said he stopped for a moment, but Wade was still making noise, so he struck Wade in the head with the cinder block again. Fornshell said a definitive motive was never established, but prosecutors suspect Pigge wanted the cell to himself.

Wade was found approximately 10 minutes after the incident by corrections officers and was transported to Atrium Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, prosecutors said. Wade's death came only a day after he was transferred into the cell with Pigge. Wade was serving a 10-year sentence for aggravated burglary.

Murder indictment 'like something out of Shawshank'

Prosecutor Fornshell had previously described Wade's death as "like something out of Shawshank" referring to the popular 1994 movie "The Shawshank Redemption."

Pigge was previously convicted of aggravated murder in 2009 in Ross County, Ohio. He is currently serving a sentence of 30 years to life for that conviction at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Fornshell said.

“Because of his prior conviction for aggravated murder, our office would typically have sought the death penalty under these circumstances," Fornshell said in the release. "However, despite his ability to premeditate and carry out this brutal murder, the Supreme Court has held that someone with the defendant’s IQ is ineligible for the death penalty. Therefore, we sought and obtained the highest sentence available to us under the law -- life without the possibility of parole.”

Pigge will be sentenced in February in front of Warren County Common Pleas Court Judge Donald Oada. Fornshell said involved parties have agreed to a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Editor's note: A previous version of this article stated jail officials found Luther Wade a day after his death. Warren County Prosecutor David Fornshell clarified that, in fact, Wade was found 10 minutes after the incident by corrections officers.