Convicted killer found dead in cell

A man convicted of killing a woman who was cleaning a rural Neshoba County church during his multi-state crime spree in 2017 was found dead in his prison cell on Saturday.

The man, Alex Deaton, 36, was found dead at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl, according to media reports. The Mississippi Department of Corrections has not yet released a cause of death.

Deaton pleaded guilty in November 2018 to the murder of Brenda Pinter, 69. Her body was found inside the Dixon Baptist Church in February 2017.

Pinter's murder was part of a series of violent crimes that began in Rankin County when Deaton strangled his girlfriend, Heather Robinson, and shot a jogger near her home. He was sentenced to life in prison for those crimes.

Authorities said Deaton then stole Robinson’s SUV and fled, later committing a carjacking in New Mexico and shooting a store clerk in Kansas, where he was arrested in March 2017.

Neshoba County Sheriff Eric Clark said Deaton “grew up here” and had family in the area.