Bureau of Prisons Inmate Sentenced to Life in Prison for 2015 Murder at United States Penitentiary

TUCSON, Ariz. – Morgan Wayne Siler, 40, of Portsmouth, Virginia, was sentenced last week by United States District Judge Scott H. Rash to two concurrent terms of life in prison. Siler pleaded guilty to Murder and Conspiracy to Murder on September 11, 2024.

On December 18, 2015, at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Siler – along with fellow inmate and co-conspirator David Hammer – killed another inmate who was housed at the facility. Siler and Hammer planned the murder in advance. The victim’s cause of death was determined to be from asphyxia and blunt force injuries.

At the time of the murder, Siler was in federal custody for a 2008 conviction stemming from an assault on a Bureau of Prisons corrections officer and a 2005 conviction for a series of retail establishment robberies in Virginia. Siler’s life sentences will run consecutive to the sentences already imposed in those cases. Co-conspirator Hammer passed away in 2019.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the investigation. The United States Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, Tucson, handled the prosecution.
 

CASE NUMBER:           CR-23-1300-TUC-SHR
RELEASE NUMBER:    2024-171_Siler

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For more information on the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona, visit http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/
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