A prisoner suspected as the "coin shop killer" in a string of slayings in several states and an attempted murder in Salt lake area died of an overdose of blood-pressure medication, officials said.
A coroner's jury ruled Wednesday that Charles T. Sinclair's death at the Cook Inlet Pre-Trial Facility in Anchorage was an accident.Sinclair, 44, collapsed in his cell in October while fighting extradition as a suspect in the shooting deaths of two Billings, Mont., coin shop workers.
The FBI became interested in Sinclair after he was arrested Aug. 13 at his Kenney Lake home near Valdez. Sinclair later became a suspect in 11 other coin shop homicides in Washington, California, Indiana and Missouri.
Jurors deliberated more than an hour Wednesday.
"We determined that there was a drug overdose," jury foreman Mary Jane Pettigrew told Coroner Charlene Doris. Pettigrew also is an Anchorage lawyer.
The cardiac arrest was caused by an accidental overdose of propranolol that Sinclair had been taking for high blood pressure, the jury said.