Florida - Prisoner kills cellmate, walks to dining hall with victim’s ear on necklace

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LAKE CITY, Fla. —
An inmate at a Florida prison strangled his cellmate, gouged the body’s eyes and then strung the dead inmate’s ear around his neck before heading to the dining hall, according to a news report.

The Miami Herald reported that Larry Mark was killed early Thursday at Columbia Correctional Institution, just hours before an unrelated gang fight erupted in another building at the prison located in Lake City, Florida.

Corrections officials say the prison houses some of the most violent inmates in the state.

A Department of Corrections spokesman says Mark had been serving a life sentence for a 1981 murder. When Mark was 20, he and a co-defendant hailed a cab and crushed the driver's skull with a heavy object. They made off with $35 and a wedding ring.

Neither the corrections agency nor the Florida Department of Law Enforcement provided the name of the attacker.

Two sources told the Herald that the cellmate became angry with Mark for pestering him. He reportedly left the eyeballs in a cup and told other prisoners that he intended to either eat or drink them later.

A corrections officer told the paper that officers at the compound have been disturbed by an explosion of violence they have been struggling to control with limited resources and short staffing.