Murder victim's mother warns state not to transfer death row inmates to Chino

CHINO, Calif. (KABC) -- Inmates on San Quentin's death row are being cleared out and transferring to 19 other prisons across California in an effort to comply with Proposition 66, which was approved by voters in 2016.

One of the facilities receiving the condemned is the California Institution for Men in Chino - a move that public officials and Chino Hills resident, Mary Ann Hughes, is fighting.

"The nightmare of what my child had to go through in his last moments will be with me forever," she said.

Hughes' 11-year-old son Christopher was murdered in 1983 by a man named Kevin Cooper. At the time, Cooper was an inmate at the Chino prison when he escaped.

Cooper's escape resulted in the murders of four people, including Christopher.

Hughes told reporters during a press conference how her husband made the grisly discovery. She recalled her family's tragedy in hopes of preventing another in her Chino Valley community.

"When Chris did not come home from church ... went up to look for them. Instead, he found our son, Christopher, Doug and Peg Ryan, their daughter Jessica ... butchered."

She stood with public officials as they called on Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to end the transfers of death row inmates to the men's prison in Chino.

"I'm outraged that these death row prisoners - 39 so far - have been transferred from San Quentin prison to the California Institution for Men," Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa said.

"In a letter to Gov. Newsom, we called on him to remove the condemned inmates already housed at CIM effective immediately and to cease sending condemned inmates to CIM," said Chino Hills Mayor Cynthia Moran.

Both mayors and law enforcement noted how the overcrowded and underfunded prison is in no condition to house dangerous death row inmates.

Chino Police Chief Kevin Mensen called the transfers a recipe for disaster.

"One inmate killed a victim with an axe during a home invasion robbery, another beat and tortured a woman to death, another inmate murdered two teenagers working a Subway sandwich shop, another beat his ex-girlfriend then lit her on fire in front of her children," said Mensen of the prisoners transferred to CIM so far.

Despite Chino Valley officials' safety concerns, the CDCR says the state is complying with mandates under Prop. 66 that death row inmates pay their victim's families restitution.

To do so, they must leave their cells to work.

But law enforcement officials say the state is picking and choosing what to follow.

"There is a responsibility under Prop. 66 that the death penalty remains the law in this state," said San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson. "So we are going to implement some of it we need to implement all of it."

As for the restitution payment -- it's not the justice Hughes has spent four decades waiting for.

"As if I would take that - that is blood money," she said.