Inmate guilty of cellmate’s killing

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Philadelphia man has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the strangulation death of his cellmate in a western Pennsylvania prison earlier this year.

The (Washington) Observer-Reporter reports that 24-year-old Raphael Spearman Jr. pleaded guilty during a video conference with a Greene County judge on Thursday and was immediately sentenced to six to 20 years in prison.

Authorities say Spearman killed 22-year-old Ronald Yarbough, of Cresson, shortly after they were assigned to the same cell in a special needs unit at the State Correctional Institution-Greene on Jan. 10. The unit houses inmates with mental, emotional or physical disabilities.

Spearman will serve the sentence after completing six to 16 years he’s serving on a parole violation. He violated parole on a 2010 conviction for assaulting a law enforcement officer with burglary and weapons convictions in 2012.