Matthew Scheile, 22, was found strangled in his cell at 1 a.m. Saturday morning in the Cummins Unit in Grady, Ar., the Department of Corrections said.
Scheile was serving a 48-month prison term for failure to register as a sex offender in Benton County. Corrections department spokesman Shea Wilson said Scheile, who was from West Fork and lived previously in Rogers, was originally convicted of sexual indecency with a child in 2010 in Cleburne County and sentenced to five years’ probation.
He was sentenced June 13, 2012 and was eligible for parole on March 15, 2013. Wilson said Scheile was Level 3 sex offender, which means police consider him a high risk to offend again.
Scheile’s cellmate, Robert Holland, 44, told prison officers that he strangled Scheile with a bed sheet Friday night and covered Scheile with a sheet to cover the crime, corrections spokesman Shea Wilson said. Holland is serving a life sentence for capital murder for shooting his parents in 1991 in El Dorado.