DETROIT – A federal inmate at Milan Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan, has pleaded guilty to Second Degree Murder in the death of a fellow inmate, announced United States Attorney Dawn N. Ison.
Ison was joined in the announcement by Josh Hauxhurst, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Jonathan Hemingway, Warden, Milan Correction Facility.
Adam Taylor Wright, 41, a former resident of Springfield, Illinois, pleaded guilty today before United States District Court Judge Paul D. Borman.
According to court records, on January 2, 2019, Wright, along with co-defendants Alex Albert Castro, 41, and Jason Dale Kechego, 40, unlawfully killed fellow inmate Christian Maire. Specifically, Wright and Kechego repeatedly kicked and stomped Maire in the head, and Wright prevented Maire from fleeing while Castro repeatedly stabbed Maire. Wright, along with his two co-defendants, then worked together to throw Maire’s body down a flight of metal stairs.
The plea agreement calls for a sentence over 27 years that can be imposed concurrently, partially concurrently, or consecutively to the sentences of imprisonment (totaling 199 months) he is already serving on three other cases.
Charges are still pending against Castro and Kechego. They are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
“When a murder happens within a prison, it undermines the safety and security of our penal institutions as well as the inmates and Bureau of Prisons employees who work there,” said U.S. Attorney Ison. “Our office will bring to justice those who engage in such senseless and brutal acts of violence.”
This case was investigated by special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Frances Lee Carlson and Andrew R. Picek.