Six Hawaiʻi inmates have been charged — five of them with first-degree murder — in the death of another Hawaiʻi inmate at an Arizona prison last year.

Anton Myklebust, 46, was beaten and strangled May 4, 2024. His body was found in his cell at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona. He had been scheduled for release last October after serving 20 years for methamphetamine trafficking and kidnapping.

The Myklebust murder and other violence at the Arizona prison last year prompted the ACLU of Hawaiʻi to call for a federal investigation of Saguaro. The ACLU has cited a variety of problems at the prison including the murder, a separate inmate stabbing last year and drug smuggling and overdose deaths.

Now charged with first-degree murder in the case are Herbert Nao Figueroa Jr.; Tintiru David Moth; Travis Torres, 36; Aaron Bolosan, 32; and Tommy Welle, 24. Ages were not provided for Figueroa and Moth. Repenson Kenan, 23, another Saguaro inmate from Hawaiʻi, is charged with hindering prosecution.

Grand jury indictments dated April 23 allege the murder occurred as the defendants “committed or attempted to commit kidnapping.” Public court documents offer no other details about what happened.

About 860 Hawaiʻi inmates are held in the Arizona prison run by the company CoreCivic. Hawaiʻi has housed some of its inmates on the mainland since the mid-1990s because state correctional facilities don’t have enough space for them.

The ACLU pointed to Myklebust’s death as a sign the state should end its relationship with CoreCivic and bring the Saguaro inmates back to Hawaiʻi.

In testimony before the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee in February on House Bill 1376, the ACLU argued Myklebust’s murder “highlights the lack of sufficient oversight and staffing at private prisons like Saguaro, and the failure to establish accountability for his death.”

Shortly after Myklebust’s killing, Tommy Johnson, director of the Hawaiʻi Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said “this tragic event will be thoroughly investigated, and whomever is found responsible will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said in a statement Friday that “CoreCivic and DCR are grateful that Pinal County has charged and is prosecuting the alleged assailants in this case for their actions.”

County spokesperson Beth Goulden said in a statement the Pinal County attorney’s office will not seek the death penalty in the Myklebust case.

Hawaiʻi does not have the death penalty but Arizona does, and crimes committed in the Arizona prison fall under the laws of that state.

Pinal County tried to impose the death penalty on Hawaiʻi prison gang member Miti Maugaotega Jr. for a 2010 murder at Saguaro prison, but finally dropped that effort in 2023 after an Arizona jury deadlocked over whether to impose a death sentence.

A trial for Bolosan, Moth and Torres is scheduled Aug. 26 in Pinal County Superior Court. Trial dates for the others have not been set.