Cales dies after prison beating

Kevin Cales

Kevin Cales, 34, who was recently sentenced to 79 years in prison after running a car off the Chamberlain Highway, killing all five people in the car, died Tuesday night after being beaten by another prisoner at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield.

On Tuesday morning, while Cales ate lunch, another prisoner, named by various media outlets as Waldemar Rivera, who is a relative of one of the passengers who died in the fatal crash, swung and knocked Cales to the ground. Rivera then stomped on Cales until guards could pull him off.

The prison immediately went into lockdown.

Cales was transported to St. Francis Hospital in Hartford and placed on life support. He died at about 10:30 p.m., according to the Associated Press.

State police were called in to investigate the incident and as of Tueday night, no charges had been filed.

Rivera is in McDougall after being convicted of robbery.

Cales was sentenced on April 3 on five counts of first-degree manslaughter for killing his ex-girlfriend and four of her passengers in a crash that followed a high-speed chase in May 2006. Killed that night were Maryneliz Jimenez, 21, and her friends, Gene Galarza, 19, Edmundo Carrasquillo, 21, Luis Andino, 18, and Brandon Shannon, 18. All five were, or had been, employees at the former Club 290 in Plainville.