Idaho man convicted of ‘cold-blooded’ triple murder dies in private prison
An Idaho man serving three life sentences for the killing of three people in the Boise Foothills nearly a decade ago died in a private prison where hundreds of men convicted in Idaho are housed out of state.
Adam Dees — convicted of murder in the deaths of an elderly couple and their son in 2015 — died while serving his life sentences at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, the state’s prison system told the Idaho Statesman. He died Saturday, May 23, and his death was ruled a suicide, according to the Pinal County medical examiner.
Dees, who was 33 years old, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the killing of Ted Welp, 80; his wife, Elaine, 77; and their son Thomas, 52, in June 2015, according to prior Statesman reporting. All three of them were shot in the head and beaten with a wooden baseball bat.
The presiding judge at the time called the killings “cold-blooded and especially brutal.”
Dees was one of hundreds of men being housed out of state in private prisons. And he isn’t the first Idaho man to die inside the CoreCivic-owned facility. Idaho prisoner Christopher Pendleton died in August died after suffering life-threatening injuries from an “inmate assault,” according to IDOC and CoreCivic. He was 38.
Men from Hawaii and Montana are also incarcerated at the nearly 2,000-person facility.
The Saguaro Correctional Center has been plagued by complaints and allegations for years. The ACLU of Hawaii in 2024 called for a federal investigation of the prison after a Hawaiian prisoner was killed, and another one stabbed, according to the Honolulu Civil Beat. Six Hawaiian prisoners were indicted last year in the May 2024 homicide of another prisoner, with five of the men being charged with first-degree murder, the news outlet reported.
Most of the men in custody out of state are at Saguaro Correctional Center, which IDOC has contracted with since 2020, but there are also a couple of hundred men being housed at Central Arizona Florence Correctional Complex, another CoreCivic prison, because of overcrowding. The Florence, Arizona, facility also operates detention centers for ICE, the Statesman reported.
