Death Row Inmate Dies of Natural Causes

HOUSTON (AP) _ A convicted killer on Texas death row for nearly three decades has died in prison.

Danny Dean Thomas was found dead Saturday at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Prison officials say an autopsy would be performed but initially are attributing his death to natural causes.

Thomas would have turned 54 Sunday.

He changed his name to Shozdijiji Shisinday since his conviction for the July 1981 abduction and murder of a Houston woman. Nineteen-year-old Sylvia Elaine Harrison was fatally shot and her body was dumped in the San Jacinto River in Harris County.

Thomas’ first conviction for her slaying was overturned on appeal and he was retried and sentenced to death again in 1998.

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