Man Didn't Intend to Kill Cellmate: Defense

An attorney representing a prison inmate charged in the strangulation death of a new cellmate last year says his client didn't intend to kill the victim.

Cambria County prosecutors allege that 22-year-old William Cramer used a torn bedsheet to kill 28-year-old William Sherry in August 2012 and tried to make it look like suicide.

The (Altoona) Mirror reports Chief Public Defender Ryan Gleason said during opening statements Thursday that he wasn't disputing that his client killed the victim.

But he said Cramer acted in the “heat of the moment” and it “was done quickly and it was not done with intent to kill,” so he should be acquitted of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors allege that Cramer, who is white, disliked Sherry because he thought he'd fathered a biracial child.

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