Man jailed for murdering two-year-old is killed by inmates

A prisoner in North Carolina who was convicted of murdering a two-year-old in 2014 was killed in a prison attack by other inmates, according to prison officials. Semajs Short, 24, was attacked by other inmates at the Bertie Correction Institution, in Windsor, on Tuesday afternoon, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) said in a statement.

Short was attacked in a housing area within the prison, the statement said. “Prisons first responders performed life-saving measures until local paramedics arrived and also worked to resuscitate the offender,” the statement added. Short was pronounced dead by paramedics at about 2.37 p.m.

According to the NCDPS, three other offenders were injured during the group assault and were taken to an outside medical facility for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. No prison staff was injured in the assault. Prison officials placed the facility on lockdown and currently, the Windsor Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation are investigating the incident.

Short was convicted of second-degree murder in Halifax County on April 3, 2017. He pleaded guilty to killing the two-year-old girl called Dy’Unanna Anderson in 2014 when he was 17 years old. WAVY reports that the girl’s murder was in retaliation for the murder of 15-year-old Keyuon Garner, who died earlier in the same evening.

Officials said Short and another person stood on an air conditioning unit outside a room where Anderson and her grandmother, Catherine Price, slept. Anderson was killed and Price was shot several times.

Short had been serving a 31-year sentence and was expected to be released on May 7, 2042.