[DiamondSmiles]

By Samantha Tata and Rosa Ordaz

NBC Los Angeles

November 29, 2013

A former Marine accused of stabbing four homeless men to death in Orange County has died while in custody, authorities said.

Itzcoatl Ocampo was found sick in his cell Wednesday evening and transported to a hospital in Santa Ana, according to Lt. Jeff Hallock with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Ocampo died Thursday afternoon around 1:30 p.m.

Authorities said Friday in a press release that Ocampo was shaking and vomitting in his single-man cell.

A cause of death has not yet been determined, but his autopsy is tentatively sheduled for early next week. Toxicology results will not be available for several weeks, officials said.

Ocampo was behind bars accused of killing four homeless men and a mother and son in a serial, “thrill-kill,” spree that set a community on edge for months.

He was arrested January 13, 2012. A friend of Ocampo’s, Eder Herrera, was initially arrested in connection with the slayings, but released when DNA evidence linked Ocampo to the crimes, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty against Ocampo, who they described as, “intelligent and calculating” in planning the slayings, stalking out his victims and carrying out, “these vicious executions with no plans of stopping.”

Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, said Ocampo preyed on homeless men because of their vulnerability.

The first victim, James McGillivray, 53, was attacked as he slept outside a Placentia shopping center on December 20, 2012.

The body of 53 year old Lloyd Middaugh was found on a Santa Ana river trail on December 27, 2012; on December 30, Paulus Cornelius Smit was found dead behind a Yorba Linda library.

The last slaying happened January 13, 2012, when John Berry was stabbed outside an Anaheim Carl’s, Jr.

Witnesses saw the slaying, chased Ocampo away and notified police who caught him after a search though a mobile home park in Yorba Linda, police said.

Ocampo also faced charges in the October 25 stabbing deaths of the mother and brother of a childhood friend -- Raquel Estrada, 53, and Juan Herrera, 34.

Photo - Itzcoatl Ocampo
KNBC

[Megamel29]

With those symptoms and the fact that he was in prison it could have been so many things that caused it. Either way, oh well. One less killer in the world.

[Pyramid_Head]

One less waste of life behind bars.

[el_topo]

I wonder why today's soldiers are returning home with a brutal killer instinct?

[K9Grip]

Originally Posted by shoelessjojackson ↗

I wonder why today's soldiers are returning home with a brutal killer instinct?

One, he wasn't a soldier, he was a Marine.

Two, he said he wanted to kill after he spent 8 mos driving a water truck on his FOB in Iraq. But, he had already admitted to joining the Marine Corps because he wanted to kill. Thus, this wasn't something "new" for him. His mental status should have been picked up prior to enlistment, but him "returning home" this way, isn't true.

[Photoplay]

Don’t think he will be missed too much by too many