UTAH STATE PRISON — A man who's spent the past 21 years behind bars for beating a woman to death says he would rather stay incarcerated than participate in programs that could help him get out of prison.
At a hearing Tuesday before Board of Pardons and Parole member Cheryl Hansen, convicted murderer Gilbert Gonzales said he refused to work or participate in any programs until he's moved back to Draper from the Weber County Jail, where he was placed recently.
Gonzales, 60, is serving a 5-years-to-life prison term for fatally beating a woman in February 1979.
Since his incarceration for the crime 21 years ago, Gonzales has run afoul of the system and now refuses to take part in education or rehabilitation programs at the Weber County Jail, according to a copy of Gonzales' record read Tuesday by Hansen.
After Hansen made several inquiries into his aberrant behavior, Gonzales defiantly stated, "If I'm going to be in that jail it doesn't matter what you do to me."
Clearly frustrated, Hansen finally asked Gonzales, "If you can't come back to prison you'd rather die in the county jail?"
"Yes," Gonzales replied.
The board is expected to issue a decision on a rehearing date in about one month. Gonzales has already had two re-hearings rescinded since his original appearance before the board in 1980.
Although he hasn't had any major disciplines in the past three years, Gonzales' history in prison includes charges of brewing alcohol in his cell, using a homemade shank to stab another inmate and stealing younger inmates' commissaries, then forcing them to perform sexual acts to get them back, Hansen said.
"With all of this — with all the chances of spending life in here, dying in here — you're not working very hard to get out of here," Hansen told Gonzales.
Gonzales had a history of alcohol-related offenses, assault charges and a 1976 negligent homicide conviction for killing a man during a bar fight, before the 1979 murder, Hansen said.
According to Hansen, Gonzales told a friend he was going to beat the woman to death just hours before he killed her. When the woman returned home the two started arguing and Gonzales beat her to death with his fist, Hansen said.
Gonzales then hid the woman's body in a boiler room, according to Hansen.
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