Colorado prisoner who murdered as teen hangs self

A man serving a life sentence for two murders he committed when he was a teenager has hanged himself, and a prison reform advocate says he had lost hope in a sentencing review process triggered by a Supreme Court decision.

The Denver Post reported Thursday that 38-year-old Gabriel Adams committed suicide in his cell at Pueblo’s San Carlos Correctional Facility on March 9. Barb Stephenson, a board member of the Colorado chapter of a grassroots prison reform group known as CURE, told the Post that Adams was losing hope his sentence would be reduced.

Adams had been due for a review after a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in an Alabama case that the Constitution forbids mandating a sentence of life in prison without parole for a juvenile offender.