Five men incarcerated at the Saguaro Correction Center — an Idaho contract prison in Eloy, Ariz. — have been charged with first-degree murder for the May 4, 2024 death of 46-year-old Anton Myklebust.
Myklebust was one of roughly 860 men sent by Hawai’i to the CoreCivic facility as a result of the state’s prisons being overcrowded. According to Honolulu Civil Beat reporter Kevin Dayton, he was nearing the end of his 20-year prison sentence for methamphetamine trafficking and kidnapping when he was found beaten and strangled to death.
Idaho and Montana also contract the facility to house their prisoner overflow.
“The Myklebust murder and other violence at the Arizona prison last year prompted the ACLU of Hawai’i to call for a federal investigation of Saguaro. The ACLU has cited a variety of problems at the prison including the murder, a separate inmate stabbing last year and a drug smuggling and overdose deaths,” Dayton writes.
Read Dayton’s full article “6 Charged in Killing of Hawai’i Inmate At Arizona Prison” here.