Convicted murderer accused of killing cellmate in Eastern WA prison north of Tri-Cities

A 36-year-old Coyote Ridge inmate serving time for murder is accused of killing his cellmate early Tuesday.

Investigators believe Christopher D. Yacono was high when he attacked Justus Cyr, 41, inside the main building of Coyote Ridge Correction Center in Connell, Police Chief Chris Lee told the Tri-City Herald.

Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the confrontation about 1:50 a.m. while the two men where locked in the cell. They had recently been assigned to the same cell.

State Department of Corrections employees reported seeing Yacono attacking Cyr with weapons he made from crafting scissors and a pen.

When officers stepped in, Yacono surrendered and has been cooperating with the investigation, Lee said. No one else was hurt.

Franklin County Public Hospital District medics tried to save Cyr, but he died at the prison, Lee said.

Yacono is being held on investigation for the death. It’s unclear what charges he will face.

Both men were serving time for crimes outside the Tri-Cities region.

Cyr was serving a nearly eight-year sentence for first-degree assault in Pierce County.

Yacono is currently serving a life term after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in Snohomish County Superior Court in 2019.

He beat a pregnant mother to death in a Montlake Terrace home in 2018, according to the Everett Herald.

He was sentenced under the state’s “three strikes” law, which says anyone guilty of three violent crimes will face an automatic life sentence without the possibility of release.

Yacono history of violence

The Everett Herald reported that Yacono has a history of mental health issues that started sometime after he graduated from high school in Lynnwood. Mental health professionals diagnosed him with a variety of issues including bipolar disorder, severe depression and schizoaffective disorder.

He told mental health professionals he hears voices that sometimes tell him to kill himself and sometimes tell him to kill others. He also has a history of alcohol and drug use, the paper reported.

While he had a history of misdemeanor crimes before 2015, he turned violent the year his mother died by suicide. That spring, he chased his girlfriend with a hammer while threatening to beat her head in, the Everett Herald reported.

He was sentenced to three months in jail after pleading guilty to second-degree assault.

A year later, he bashed in his ex-roommate’s apartment door, made a mess and lit the man’s mattress on fire. He was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to arson and cyberstalking.

A month after being released in March 2018 he broke into a Montlake Terrace home and beat 31-year-old Marta Halle, who died days later from her injuries, the Everett Herald reported.

The mother of two was 18 weeks pregnant, and the baby also did not survive.

Coyote Ridge prison

Washington State Department of Corrections has four security levels. Coyote Ridge is one of nine prisons classified in the third highest category, which includes medium and the most serious minimum security inmates.

While Department of Corrections officials can’t speak about why Yacono was being held there, officials told the Tri-City Herald that a person’s crime is only part of the equation for determining which prison they are placed in.

Facilities have teams of officials who consider how well inmates are behaving in the prison system and their history of infractions and threat of escape, along with their crime.

Prison officials also could not discuss the allegations that Yacono was high at the time of the attack.

But just last week, corrections officials sent a news release about the ongoing problem of drugs getting to inmates inside the prison after three separate visitors allegedly tried to bring contraband into the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, a maximum security prison.

“When drugs make it into prisons, it undermines our core function to rehabilitate,” DOC Secretary Tim Lang said in a news release. “This is a daily issue. It’s a profound threat.”

The department’s Intelligence and Investigations Unit works to stop guns and drugs from getting into the prisons.

Officials said prisoner mail is scanned because mail has been found to be infused with opioids and cannabinoids. And trained fentanyl-sniffing dogs are also being used.

Balloons and drones have been intercepted coming over prison walls, and visitors are being individually screened, including a pilot project to use a body scanner.

This story was originally published April 29, 2025 at 12:57 PM.