GRUESOME

Report: Florida Prisoner Allegedly Gouged Out Cellmate’s Eyes, Wore Ear on Necklace

Prison guards reportedly didn’t notice anything was amiss until Friday morning.

A Jacksonville prisoner allegedly killed his cellmate and gouged out his eyes Thursday morning—but prison staff didn’t notice until the next day, The Miami Herald reports. The unnamed prisoner at the Columbia Correctional Institution’s annex allegedly strangled his cellmate, 58-year-old Larry Mark, and then removed his eyeballs because Mark was “pestering” him, according to the report. The prisoner also allegedly removed Mark’s ear before wrapping his “blood-soaked body” in a sheet. He then strung the ear onto a necklace and put Mark’s eyeballs in a cup so that he could “eat or drink them later,” the prisoner allegedly told others. The inmate was somehow able to walk down to the chow hall Friday morning wearing the ear necklace before prison guards discovered something was amiss, sources told the newspaper. The Florida Department of Corrections and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are both investigating the slaying, and would not “provide further details or confirm the circumstances of the killing” to the newspaper. Julie Jones, secretary of Florida’s Department of Corrections, said in a statement that the department is working to “investigate this death and ensure anyone responsible is held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”