Second life sentence for Chicago man who killed cell mate at Stateville

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Richard Conner

Updated: January 18, 2012 9:05PM

JOLIET — A Chicago man earned his second life prison sentence Wednesday, pleading guilty in front of a Will County judge to the first-degree murder of his prison cell mate.

Richard Conner, 40, admitted he strangled 37-year-old Jameson Leezer to death while the men shared a cell at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill. Will County Judge Richard Schoenstedt said he had no choice in sentencing Conner, who is already serving life for a 1991 murder in Cook County.

Conner pleaded guilty in 1993 to killing 20-year-old Pedro Mazon Jr. in the Mazon family’s jewelry store in the 3900 block of West North Avenue in Chicago, according to published reports at the time.

Eighteen years after that first murder, Conner told Stateville guards he’d killed his “celly.” They found Leezer dead in his cell April 2, 2009, prosecutors said. Officials have said they believe the white Leezer and black Conner got into a fight about race.

“They were a very poor choice of roommates to be housed together,” a source said.

Though Conner was serving a life sentence for murder, officials said Leezer was a “short-timer” serving a five-year prison sentence for possession of a stolen motor vehicle in Iroquois County. He’d lived part of his life in Bolingbrook and Joliet, and he was set to be released 16 days after his death.

Prosecutors wanted to seek the death penalty for Conner until Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation last year to abolish it.

Records show Conner now is being held at the Tamms Correctional Center, the state’s “supermax” prison.