One of three killed in Nevada prison fight was a member of a white supremacist gang that killed an inmate in 2016

RENO, Nevada — One of three inmates killed in a fight at a Nevada prison this week was a member of a white supremacist gang who was serving a life sentence for his role in the 2016 murder of an inmate at another Nevada prison, authorities said Friday.

The local sheriff identified Anthony Williams, 41, as the third of three people killed in the fight Tuesday at the Nevada maximum-security prison in rural Ely. Nine other inmates were injured.

State and prison officials have released few details since then, though White Pine County Sheriff Scott Henriod confirmed Friday that “all three individuals involved in this incident died from multiple sharp object injuries.”

“This is an ongoing investigation,” Henriod said in an email to The Associated Press.

The other victims identified earlier were Connor Brown, 22, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., and Zacharia Luz, 42, of Las Vegas.

Luz has been identified as a leader of the Aryan Warriors white supremacist gang. He and Williams were among 23 alleged gang members who were indicted in a massive Las Vegas racketeering case involving murder, drug trafficking and identity theft in 2019.

The indictment first links Williams and another person to the 2016 stabbing death of Andrew Ryan Thurgood in a cell at High Desert State Prison in southern Nevada.

Williams pleaded guilty to murder in Clark County District Court in 2021 as part of a plea deal that eliminated the death penalty. He was also convicted of being a habitual felony offender and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole at the prison in Ely, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of the Utah border, the Nevada Department of Corrections said.

Luz was sentenced last year to seven to 18 years in prison for his racketeering and counterfeiting convictions, the department said.

Brown was serving a seven- to 20-year prison sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon, the department said. He was sentenced in 2021 after pleading guilty to stabbing a gas station attendant and a casino patron in downtown Reno in 2020.

Authorities have not said what sparked the violence at the jail this week. Henriod said sheriff’s deputies were called to the jail around 9:40 a.m. Tuesday.

No corrections officers were injured, the Nevada Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Ely State Prison is one of six prisons in Nevada. It has nearly 1,200 beds and houses the state’s death row for convicted murderers as well as a lethal injection chamber that has never been used. Nevada has not carried out an execution since 2006.

Prison conditions in the state have drawn criticism from prisoner rights advocates, particularly during hot summers and cold winters. In December 2022, several people incarcerated at Ely State Prison began a hunger strike due to what prisoner rights advocates and some family members described as unsafe conditions and inadequate food portions.

Efforts stalled before reaching the state Legislature last year to address a years-long state audit that found widespread deficiencies in use-of-force policies in prisons.