The family of a woman who was strangled last year on an overnight visit with her husband at a California prison said Wednesday that such visits should be suspended until officials can figure out how to prevent similar tragedies.
Tania Thomas, 47, was killed in July, four months before Stephanie Dowells, 62, was strangled while she was visiting her husband at the same facility, Mule Creek State Prison in Ione.
The Amador County Coroner’s Office recently ruled Dowells’ death a homicide, and Thomas’ husband, Anthony Curry, was charged a week ago with murder in connection with Thomas’ killing. He is scheduled to be arraigned next week.
“Something needs to be done, and it should have been done two homicides ago,” said the family’s designated spokesperson, Jeanine Rojo, Thomas’ cousin.
“I’m sick to my stomach that this happened to Tania, but then it happened again just months after her to Stephanie,” she added, “and it should have been prevented.”
Despite the two homicides, deaths during overnight visits at the prison in Northern California are extremely rare, said Amador County District Attorney Todd Riebe.
“It’s very concerning. It’s unprecedented in my experience. It’s unprecedented in the facility,” he said.
The killings are the first violent acts during family visits at Mule Creek that he has seen in his 26 years as district attorney, he said.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has not provided information in response to inquiries about whether other homicides have occurred during visits at Mule Creek or other state prisons, not all of which allow overnight stays.
The overnight visits are intended to support family connections and successful rehabilitation, according to the corrections department. Inmates on death row, convicted of sex crimes or under disciplinary restrictions are ineligible for consideration, according to the department.
Family visits occur in private, apartment-like facilities on prison grounds and last from 30 to 40 hours. Inmates have to show themselves for a count at least four times in a 24-hour period, according to the department.
The families of both women said they believe neither Curry nor Dowells’ husband, David Brinson, 54, should have been allowed the visits because they were convicted of violent crimes.
Both families said they want to see the eligibility rules changed and protections added to ensure people are safe during unsupervised visits.
Riebe said charges in Dowells’ death are pending prison and autopsy reports. Brinson was convicted in the 1990s of murdering four men during a robbery and sentenced to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
“One thing I do want to know is how many other times has this happened at Mule Creek and it’s gone undetected,” Rojo said. “If Stephanie’s family and Tania’s family didn’t come forward, the public would not have known.”
Rojo said it was only after Thomas was killed that the family learned Thomas and Curry were intimately involved and married in 2023.
“She did not tell any of us in the family, because she knew we were not going to approve,” Rojo said.
Curry, 48, is serving a life sentence for attempted second-degree murder with an enhancement in the shooting of his girlfriend in 1999.
The victim, Synada Browning, was found at a truck stop with a gunshot wound to her head, which left her blind, partially paralyzed and without any recollection of the shooting, according to court records. Curry is also serving a 13-year prison sentence for a separate carjacking.
After Curry got Thomas pregnant, he disappeared and was with Browning, Rojo said. Thomas learned from news reports that Curry had been dating Browning and was accused in her shooting.
“We didn’t know where he went,” Rojo said. “I was relieved, but it wasn’t until I saw the news, and this is when she was in labor, I saw him on the news, and that was because of what he did to the other girl.”
Thomas and Curry stayed in touch over the years because they share a 25-year-old son, who is in the Air Force, Rojo said.
“We always knew that they were on speaking terms, but we just did not know that they were involved in that way,” Rojo said.
Thomas’ son was informed she had been killed on July 2, and the county coroner determined her death was a homicide in December, said Rojo, who questioned why it took months for Curry to be charged with murder.
Riebe, the district attorney, said Wednesday that he understood the family’s frustration but that he could not file charges until he had reviewed the prison investigation and autopsy reports, both of which he said he received last month.
Rojo and Thomas, who were five months apart in age, grew up in San Francisco and were like sisters, she said. She recalled them sharing a room and clothes when they were younger and even having their children around the same time.
“We’ve always been close. We’ve never stopped,” Rojo said. “She lived just a few minutes away from me. We both helped each other, especially because she was sick with lupus and a single parent.”
Thomas took medication daily to manage her lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, which she was diagnosed with as a teenager, and underwent regular dialysis, Rojo said.
Although the disease posed limitations, Thomas “lived her life to the fullest” and “to the best of her ability,” Rojo said.
Thomas worked for the San Francisco Unified School District for many years, and at the time of her death she was working as a mentor for developmentally delayed adults, Rojo said.
“She loved to help in everything she did, both personal and her career life,” Rojo said.
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