A jury trial is set for today for a former SCI Pine Grove inmate charged with criminal homicide in the death of his cellmate.
43-year-old Dwight Darnell Bowen of Houtzdale was charged with the death of his cellmate, 32-year-old Luis Antonio Santiago on New Year’s Day, 2019. Police said that Bowen had called for prison guards shortly after 10:00 that night. Guards found Bowen at his cell window, and Santiago was on the ground, unresponsive, without a pulse and not breathing. Santiago was pronounced dead at Indiana Regional Medical Center, and the autopsy showed that he died from asphyxiation due to venous obstruction.
The investigation included interviews with SCI Pine Grove staff and inmates, a review of video surveillance footage, and examination of items found in the cell, including blood evidence and a folded t-shirt. DNA test results from cuttings taken from the shirt matched Santiago’s blood, and his saliva was found on one cutting. His blood was also on a wall of the cell and a cabinet. Blood found on another cabinet matched Santiago and another individual, with the major component of the mixture matching the profile of Bowen.
Bowen was once on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list but was captured before the list was published. He is currently serving a life sentence at SCI-Houtzdale for guilty pleas to the 2001 murders of two toddlers, ages 3 and 1, in Philadelphia as a dispute between Bowen and another mean lead to Bowen using a Molotov cocktail to firebomb a row house.
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