Arizona’s Family reporter Briana Whitney starts her report by reminding viewers that Ricky Wassenaar was already one of the most notorious inmates in the state long before the latest killings.
Back in 2004, Whitney notes, Wassenaar helped lead one of the longest prison standoffs in U.S. history at the Lewis prison complex.
He and another inmate took over a guard tower for more than two weeks, holding officers hostage, and one guard later said she was raped during the ordeal.
Now, decades later, Whitney reports that Wassenaar is again in the spotlight – this time as the confessed killer of three fellow inmates at a Tucson prison in April.
He is the sole suspect in what she describes as a “mass killing” behind bars.
In a recorded call from the Arizona State Prison Complex Eyman, SMU 2 unit, Wassenaar doesn’t try to deny what he did.
He tells Whitney flatly that he is a killer, that he feels “justified,” and that he actually wanted to kill even more men than he did.
How He Used The Prison’s Routine Against It
Whitney explains that the three men who died – Saul Alvarez, Thorne Harnage, and Donald Lashley – all had something in common.
According to Wassenaar, each of them was in prison for crimes involving children.
“They were child molesters,” Wassenaar tells Whitney during their phone interview.
He claims Alvarez came to the U.S. illegally, then kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 15-year-old girl, and that Harnage and Lashley were also sexual predators with multiple victims.
Whitney confirms in her report that Alvarez was serving time for first-degree murder, while Harnage and Lashley were imprisoned for child sex crimes.
That fact becomes the center of how Wassenaar frames his actions.
He tells Whitney he “did society a favor” by killing them, using harsh language and open contempt for his targets.
To him, their crimes are not just background – they are his entire justification.
Whitney then walks viewers through how he says he pulled it off.
He describes a part of the prison’s daily routine: meal time.
According to Wassenaar, before breakfast or other meals, inmates are placed in what he calls a “chute” – a cage just outside the chow hall.
Once that cage is locked, he explains, there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
That choke point, he tells Whitney, was his opportunity.
He says that once he saw one of his “main targets,” he acted early.
“Once I seen my main target… I jumped the gun and I started,” he says.
If he had waited until the chute was fully locked and crammed, he insists he “would have killed at least seven.”
Wassenaar tells Whitney that his goal was at least seven, and he was “hoping for a baker’s dozen,” all child molesters.
That detail, reported by Whitney, shows he wasn’t acting on impulse — he was planning a mass killing inside a supposedly controlled environment.
It’s chilling because he didn’t exploit some sophisticated flaw. He simply used a predictable part of the prison’s daily schedule and a crowded cage.
The “Practice Killing” Everyone Missed
Whitney’s reporting also reveals that April’s triple killing may not have been the first time Wassenaar had taken a life behind bars.
Months earlier, in November 2024, he says he was given a new cellmate: Joseph Desisto.
Whitney explains that, according to Wassenaar, Desisto was in prison for child molestation and abuse.
Wassenaar claims he immediately told staff that putting someone in his cell was a mistake.
“I can’t have a celly, I’m not prepared for that. I’ve been in my own cell for the last 21 years,” Whitney quotes him saying.
Despite that warning, he says, the two men were housed together.
Desisto later died in that cell.
Wassenaar tells Whitney he killed him, and he goes so far as to describe it as “practice” for what he would eventually do in Tucson.
In the call, he claims he put suntan lotion on Desisto’s neck and let sweat drip onto his face while strangling him.
It’s a clinical, emotionless description that Whitney relays without sensationalizing.
But officially, that death was ruled very differently.
Whitney reports that the Pima County Medical Examiner listed Desisto’s cause of death as natural, tied to underlying health conditions.
To Wassenaar, that ruling was almost proof he could get away with more.
He tells Whitney that when he returned to the yard, other inmates couldn’t believe he was back so quickly and that everyone “knew” what he had done.
He says he warned prison officials that it would “recur” if they put another person in his cell.
According to his account to Whitney, no one took that seriously enough to stop what happened months later in Tucson.
That’s where Whitney’s story starts to stretch beyond one man and into a systemic question.
If an inmate openly claims to have killed once and says he’ll do it again, how does the system still allow him access to multiple targets in a confined space?
Inside Wassenaar’s Vigilante Mindset
Whitney spends much of her interview trying to understand not just how Wassenaar did this, but why he thinks it was justified.
She presses him with questions most viewers are probably asking themselves.
“Obviously there is nobody who justifies child molestation,” she tells him.
She points out that all of the men he killed had already been sentenced for their crimes.
So why, she asks, did he feel it was his job to kill them – a different crime that is also serious and morally wrong?
Wassenaar almost seems pleased by the question.
“I love that you asked that,” he tells Whitney. “That’s beautiful.”
Then he launches into what he calls “Plan B.”
He says he asked God what Plan B for his life was, and that the answer he received was to kill child molesters.
He lays out three supposed “reasons” for Whitney.
First, he claims he gave “closure” to their victims because “the monster that molested them is no longer alive to reoffend.”
Second, he argues they’ll never get out to hurt more children, no matter how appeals turned out.
Third, he calls his killings a deterrent.
He tells Whitney that potential child molesters “out there in that world” might see that he’s “slaughtering those maggots” in prison and decide not to offend.
Whitney doesn’t just nod along.
She pushes back: other people will say you can’t just kill people, she reminds him.
“I can, why can’t I?” Wassenaar shoots back.
When she points out that murder is against the law, he dismisses it as “your law.”
He tells her that society’s rules “do not apply” inside the razor wire.
In his mind, the prison is a separate world with its own code.
Whitney directly asks if that makes him a monster.
He denies it, but then flips the label.
“If you’re a child molester… I’m their monster,” he says. “I’m their monster.”
It’s a twisted kind of self-image – vigilante, executioner, and avenger – that Whitney lets him expose in his own words.
Her questions make clear that while many people despise child predators, most do not accept inmates as judge, jury, and executioner.
A Personal Revenge Story Or A Systemic Failure?
Whitney’s report hints at something bigger than just one violent man.
She notes that Wassenaar believed there was a chance he could be resentenced for the 2004 standoff and might even have a path to freedom.
When that didn’t happen, he tells her, the idea for his killing spree “was born.”
That suggests a mix of revenge, hopelessness, and vigilante fantasy – not some clean moral mission.
At the same time, his story raises serious questions for Arizona’s prison system.
He says he warned staff about his intolerance of child-molester cellmates.
He claims he confessed to strangling Desisto and even gave details to the prison’s Criminal Investigations Unit.
Yet the official ruling was natural causes, and he was placed back in circulation.
Then, in April, he found himself in exactly the kind of setup he wanted: a crowded cage outside a chow hall, with multiple targets trapped beside him.
Three men died, and by his own words to Whitney, he was disappointed it wasn’t more.
Whitney leaves viewers with the sense that this isn’t just about what one inmate decided to do.
It’s about what prison officials knew, when they knew it, and how they still allowed this level of access and proximity.
She notes that Arizona’s Family chief investigative reporter Morgan Low is continuing to dig into whether this was a failure or a complete lack of competency by the state’s new Department of Corrections leadership.
That follow-up will focus on the system that surrounded Wassenaar – not just the man himself.
The moral line is easy to state and hard to defend in a place like prison: you don’t get to fix one crime with another.
Whitney’s reporting makes clear that while the men Wassenaar targeted committed horrific acts, the state had already claimed the right to punish them.
When an inmate decides he’s above even that system and starts killing in its shadow, it doesn’t “clean up” evil.
It exposes new layers of danger – both in the mind of a self-appointed executioner and in the walls that were supposed to stop him.
This article first appeared on Survival World.
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The article Convicted felon carries out three prison murders in Arizona – here’s how and why he did it first appeared on Survival World.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
