Disgraced Lostprophets front man Ian Watkins, who was serving out close to three decades of prison time for preying on minors, was found in his cell with his throat cut.
Watkins’ offenses include the accumulation of 27 terabytes of illegal imagery and footage of his underage victims.
The former rocker was handed concurrent 14- and 15-year sentences in 2013 and had an additional 10 months tacked on in 2019 after prison authorities found a phone in his possession.
Highlights
- Watkins was serving nearly 30 years for child sex crimes and possession of 27TB of abuse images.
- Police confirm two inmates have been arrested after Watkins was found with his throat cut.
- The former rocker previously survived a 2023 prison attack that also targeted his neck.
Police have since indicated that they have identified the predator’s assailant.
Two men have been arrested for the slaying of Ian Watkins
Image credits: Getty/Naki
The 48-year-old had been serving out his sentence at His Majesty’s Prison, Wakefield, in central England.
According to the local West Yorkshire Police’s website, the department was alerted to an incident involving the “assault of a prisoner.”
Emergency services were dispatched and found the individual deceased when they arrived.
The update stipulated that law enforcement has since apprehended two unnamed individuals for the crime, aged 25 and 43.
The shamed former musician’s slaying is considered the “most high-profile” of its kind
Image credits: South Wales Police
The BBC published claims that a knife was used in the attack, while another UK outlet, The Sun, reported that the singer’s throat had been slit.
It further noted that the facility has a reputation for the ilk of criminals it houses and thus it earned the moniker “Monster House.”
Watkins’ slaying, meanwhile, has been dubbed the “most high-profile” of its kind “in a UK jail in living memory.”
It was not the first time the former musician had been attacked.
An attack in 2023 also resulted in neck injuries
Image credits: Gett/Andy Sheppard
In August 2023, the rocker was stabbed and as a result, rushed to the hospital. The attack is reported to have involved three inmates, and tellingly, also left the rocker with wounds in his neck.
The incident transpired during an attempted prison siege that abated after a riot team deployed tear gas canisters.
Image credits: BCC
The alleged reason for the uprising centered on the disgraced musician: there was unhappiness regarding his guitar lessons and his significantly younger girlfriend visiting him at the facility.
The illicit footage he had accumulated of his crimes amounted to 27 terabytes
Image credits: Getty/Shirlaine Forrest
Watkins’ crimes ensured that he would spend 29 years and 10 months at the facility, with his right to appeal revoked.
He had been found guilty of numerous instances of child exploitation, attempted child exploitation, and accumulated so much evidence of his crimes that the digital storage it consumed outweighed that of the South Wales Police data storage, which at the time employed just under 5,500 staffers.
In one instance, Watkins told a woman that he “owned” her and her baby.
Watkins was tech-savvy and able to keep investigators out of his data storage with encryption
Image credits: Wales News Service
Officials initially struggled to access Watkins’ data storage due to sophisticated encryption, but eventually cracked it.
“Clearly he was a man who used encryption tools. He was a man who went to some lengths to conceal what he was storing,” Detective Chief Inspector Peter Doyle observed during the trial.
Image credits: Wales News Service
“He went to some considerable lengths to try and hide his wrongdoing.”
“That takes some time to unravel and unfold but unravel it, we did. Which is why we are where we are today.”
Watkins pleaded guilty at the last minute and his lawyers pushed for leniency
Image credits: Wales News Service
And even when police cracked his encryption, Watkins clung to his claims of innocence until the last minute.
His lawyers claimed that this was due to a bad memory damaged by the rocker’s penchant for mind-bending chemicals.
When Watkins eventually pleaded guilty to 13 charges, presiding Judge Rodney Jameson KC observed a “complete lack of remorse” in his demeanor and accused him of being a “corrupting influence.”
Image credits: Wales News Service
The latter stemmed from gaining the approval of the mothers of his victims to perpetrate his evil intentions.
“This case breaks new ground. Any decent person... will experience shock, revulsion and incredulity.”
The child predator is said to have victimized people around the world
Image credits: Getty/Ian Gavan
During their investigation, law enforcement is reported to have interviewed foreign nationals, per the Daily Mail.
And even with the formidable litigable evidence, Doyle still believed that Watkins had more victims.
Netizens have no sympathy for the predator
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