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Inmate Allegedly Beat Cellmate, An Accused Sex Offender, To Death Because God And His Dead Mom Told Him To
David Faustino Flores says he told officials at the Tarrant County Jail that he had schizophrenia and needed his own cell because he "can't handle other people." Cellmate Clinton Don Simpson, an alleged child molester, ended up having his head repeatedly bashed into the floor and later died.
A Texas inmate accused of brutally killing his cellmate, an alleged child molester, says he did it because both God and his dead mother wanted him to.
David Faustino Flores, 42, has been charged with murder for the Nov. 7 death of 76-year-old Clinton Don Simpson, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Simpson’s head was repeatedly bashed into the floor, officials at the Tarrant County Jail said.
Flores, who told reporters last week that he suffers from schizophrenia and hears voices, said he attacked Simpson because he was convinced his cellmate was actually Osama bin Laden.
"My mom said, ‘That’s bin Laden, so you ought to go get him.’ So I went to whale on him … and God said, ‘Go ahead,'" Flores said, according to the Star-Telegram.
Flores also said he had told jail officials about his schizophrenia before the incident and that he would need his own cell because he "can't handle other people."
He was at one point placed in solitary confinement, but after a suicide attempt had been moved to the medical unit of the jail where he was placed on suicide watch and put in the same cell with Simpson, who was accused in 2007 of molesting 12 children at a miniature train station and track he had run in his backyard called "Mr. Don's Whistle Stop."
Simpson, a former preacher, had previously been ruled incompetent to stand trial in the case and spent years in state hospitals before being returned to the Tarrant County jail in July, the paper reports.
Flores said he didn't know what Simpson had been accused of, but claimed his alleged victim had been whispering things to him and giving him the "heebie-jeebies" after the two were placed in a cell together.
“At that time I was already paranoid everyone wants to kill me,” he said, according to the Star-Telegram. “I thought this whole place was ISIS.”
Authorities said Flores attacked Simpson, who was in a wheelchair, striking him in the head about 20 times, before returning to deliver more blows. Once Simpson fell out of his wheelchair, Flores allegedly continued to hit him before grabbing his head and slamming it into the floor more than a dozen times.
Simpson was taken to a hospital where he died of his injuries, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Flores apparently didn’t know that Simpson died.
“I didn’t mean to do it. I shouldn’t have done it,” he said after being informed by reporters that Simpson didn’t survive.
Flores had been in jail for an alleged assault in October. He told reporters he attacked an elderly man because he believed the man was a member of Al-Qaeda.
His brother, Brandon Flores, told the Star-Telegram he believes his brother's mental condition made him vulnerable in jail and said he plans to find a defense attorney who specializes in mental illness.
“I think it’s like putting a snake in with a spider, and you just want to see what happens,” he had told the paper in an earlier interview. “I believe there’s some cruelty behind what happened to my brother.”
[Photo Credit: Tarrant County]
