PENDLETON — Convicted murderer Simon Rios was found dead Thursday morning from an apparent suicide at Pendleton Correctional Facility, according to prison Superintendent Brett Mize.

The Indiana Department of Correction reported that a correction officer found Rios hanging around 12:39 a.m. Mize said Rios was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later, at 1:20 a.m., after guards and medical personnel were unable to revive him.

A suicide note was also found, and the department did not believe others were involved.

“The incident is currently being investigated by Facility Internal Affairs staff and the Indiana State Police,” public information officer Neil Potter said in a written statement. “According to investigators on the scene, there were no signs of foul play. The offender’s body is being transported to Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, where an autopsy will be performed.”

Rios, 36, Fort Wayne, was serving four life sentences for the murder of his wife and three young daughters inside their Fort Wayne home in December 2005. He was also serving another life sentence, plus 100 years, for the abduction, rape, kidnapping and murder of murder of a 10-year-old girl in Delaware County.

Alejandra Gutierrez, a classmate of one of Rios’ daughters, disappeared from Fort Wayne on Dec. 8, 2005, while she was on the way to her school bus stop. On Dec. 19, her body was found in a Delaware County field. Autopsy results revealed she had been raped and strangled.

Five days after the killing, police said, Rios called to confess he had killed his family. Investigators say he hit his wife, Ann Casa, with a pipe and then strangled her before strangling his three daughters, 10-year-old Liliana, 4-year-old Kathy and 20-month-old Thannya.

Delaware County Prosecutor Mark McKinney strongly considered seeking the death penalty against Rios, and the Delaware County commissioners were willing to fund the pursuit of the sentence. Instead, prosecutors honored the wishes of Gutierrez’s survivors.

In court, Rios entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to five life terms with no possibility of parole. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the death penalty. Rios came to Pendleton Correctional Facility on Oct. 26, 2007.

Delaware County Sheriff George Sheridan characterized Rios’s death as “good news” in an interview with The Star Press of Muncie.

“My initial reaction was that it was good news due to what he did and the violence of the attack and the condition he left (Alejandra) in,” Sheridan said.

---------

Simon Rios

Age: 36

Hometown: Fort Wayne