DELANO – A Bay Area native who previously allegedly killed the co-founder of a notorious skinhead group in Orange County was killed in his jail cell, authorities announced Friday.
Jacob Kober, 35, was stabbed multiple times in his cell at Kern Valley State Prison on Thursday, authorities said. His cellmate, 39-year-old Matthew Perez, also suffered injuries consistent with a “prison-made weapon,” in keeping with a news release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Authorities said only Kober and Perez were within the cell on the time of the murder.
Known as an area methamphetamine and marijuana dealer within the Livermore area in 2015, Kober was serving a life sentence for killing a longtime friend on the fourth hole of a golf course. But in 2018, he was again implicated in murder, this time for a jail stabbing that had repercussions throughout the state's prison system.
The victim was 48-year-old Devlin Stringfellow, an Orange County native and co-founder of the skinhead gang Public Enemy Number One, or PENI. Prosecutors now say his murder was ordered by an Aryan Brotherhood member named William Sylvester, who was convicted of organized crime last April and now faces a life sentence.
Prosecutors say Stringfellow's 2018 murder was a typical Aryan Brotherhood attack. It happened during a training exercise at California State Prison in Sacramento. Someone hit Stringfellow on the pinnacle with a rock to stun him, then Kober and 49-year-old Stephen Dunckhurst allegedly stabbed him, in keeping with testimony at a trial of Sylvester and two other Aryan Brotherhood members.
While awaiting trial, Sylvester reportedly boasted to other co-defendants about ordering Stringfellow's death. Another PENI co-founder, Donald “Popeye” Mazza, later agreed to testify for the federal government, partly due to his grief over Stringfellow's death, Mazza said during his testimony on the organized crime trial.
Kober was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for killing his friend Kenneth Robert Ogden, 28, amid mounting tensions between the 2 men. Kober had previously accused his girlfriend of getting sex with Ogden, and in addition they had a dispute over money, authorities said on the time. Kober made his money selling drugs and lived just yards from the fourth hole of a close-by golf course, where Ogden's body was found, court records show.
According to authorities, Perez was serving a jail sentence for assault with a firearm and gang activity.
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