Death row inmate serving time for murdering San Luis Obispo County family dies in prison

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - Richard Allen Benson, who killed a San Luis Obispo County woman and her three young children, has died in prison.

Benson was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison and had been on death row since 1987. He was found unresponsive in his cell on Monday. He did not have a cellmate, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In January 1986, Benson molested, tortured, and killed Laura Camargo and her three children: Sterling, 23 months, Shawna, 3, and Stephanie, 4. He murdered Camargo with a hammer and then suffocated her infant son. Over the next two days he molested Camargo's daughters before killing them as well. He then set fire to the family's home. He was 38 at the time of the crimes.

He was sentenced to death in Santa Barbara County after his trial was moved out of San Luis Obispo County. A stay was placed on additional sentences for lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years old and of arson of an inhabited structure.

Benson had been serving time in prison while awaiting execution. In March 2019, newly-elected Governor Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on executions in the state. That meant Benson, along with two other death row inmates from San Luis Obispo County, would continue to serve life sentences in prison.

Benson was 74 years old. Foul play is not suspected, but the Marin County Sheriff’s Office Coroner Division will determine his cause of death.

More than 700 inmates in California are currently on death row.