Confessed prison killer Ricky Wassenaar finally charged in April murders, pleads not guilty

Ricky Wassenaar, who is already serving 16 life sentences for commandeering a prison watchtower and taking guards hostage for 15 days in 2004, pleaded not guilty in December to three murder charges — even though he had already bragged to the Mirror and other media outlets that he had killed four men in a sex-offender unit at a state prison in Tucson to help rid the world of child molesters.

Wassenaar told the Mirror that, on April 4, 2025, he suffocated and strangled his cellmate, Saul Alvarez, because he didn’t want to have to share a cell with him. Then he placed a rock in his fishnet laundry bag, took it to a fenced-in area where other prisoners waited to be let into a mess hall, and started swinging, killing prisoners Thorne Harnage and Donald Lashley, and injuring another prisoner.

His only regret was that there were not more people in line.

“If I had waited until they were all locked in that cage, I would have killed ten or 12,” he told the Arizona Mirror in an April 2025 interview. “I wanted to kill them all.”

Wassenaar also claimed to have killed another cell mate, Joseph Desisto, in November 2024, also because he did not want to share a cell. He was not charged in that death because an autopsy ruled that Desisto had likely died of natural causes.

“I choked him with an arm bar and then with my hands,” Wassenaar said last year, adding that he was sweating from the exertion and his DNA should have been all over Desisto.

Despite the confessions, the case seemed to fall into a time warp.

Though the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry pronounced Wassenaar guilty of three murders on his disciplinary record, it did not refer the case to the Pima County Attorney’s Office until late June. Pima County declared a conflict of interest and passed the case to Pinal County.

“My prosecutors had placed at least two of those people in prison,” Pima County Attorney Laura Conover told the Mirror, the first time her office had explained its conflict.

In child sexual assault cases, the victims and offenders are often family members.

“Some of the loved ones…” Conover stopped herself. “Some of the next of kin did not support some convictions,” she said, “but we went forward — and shortly after, they were killed.”

Conover said she thought it best to have “a neutral, independent view of what happened within the prison walls” to try Wassenaar, so she passed the case to the Pinal County Attorney’s Office. 

On Oct. 10, a Pinal County grand jury quietly handed up an indictment — so quietly that, in that same month, Wassenaar was asking a prison advocate what was taking so long.

“He pointed out several times that he had heard absolutely nothing,” said Donna Hamm, who leads the advocacy group Middle Ground.

Predictably, he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Harnage, Alvarez and Lashley, and one count of dangerous or deadly assault by a prisoner for the non-fatal attack on a fourth person.

And despite the public confessions, he pleaded “not guilty” at his arraignment on Dec. 18.

‘I wanted to kill them all’: Inmate admits to targeting child sex offenders in prison killings

Whether Pinal County decides to seek the death penalty remains to be seen. Neither the Pinal County Attorney’s Office nor the Department of Corrections responded to a request for comment. But since the case entails multiple murders and an additional serious felony, Wassenaar would qualify for capital punishment under Arizona law.

“Because he’s serving 16 consecutive life sentences, that in itself is a very weighty aggravator that would make him eligible for the death penalty,” said Victoria Washington, his court-appointed attorney.

“Given my experience, and the sheer magnitude of the prior conviction, there’s a high probability of filing a death notice,” Washington said.

Wassenaar has spent 40 of his 62 years in prison. He was first arrested in 1986 for armed robbery and aggravated assault and served a ten-year sentence. He was out for all of four-and-a-half months when he robbed a video store in Tucson and led police on a high-speed chase that ended in a crash. That conviction landed him in the Lewis Prison in Buckeye.

In 2004, Wassenaar and another prisoner attempted to escape, but had to retreat to a prison guardtower, where they took two correctional officers hostage, one male and one female. They surrendered after 15 days. 

Wassenaar’s accomplice entered into a plea agreement. Wassenaar went to trial and acted as his own attorney. In the end, he was found guilty of all charges, resulting in 16 life terms, a harsh sentence imposed because committing crimes while in prison is considered an aggravating factor. And because he was convicted of sexually assaulting the female officer, Wassenaar ended up in a sex-offender unit.

At first, he was sent to a prison in Ohio so he could be closer to his family in Michigan. He was later transferred to New Mexico, and in 2016, sent back to Arizona. His security threat level had recently been lowered, which meant he no longer would be kept in solitary, and he was housed in a sex-offender unit. 

Alvarez had been convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a teenage girl. The other three men killed were convicted of sexually abusing young children. Wassenaar said in April 2025 that felt he didn’t belong in the same unit.

When he was told he would have a cellmate, he claims he said he would kill anyone they put in his cell. So, when prison staff brought Desisto to his cell, Wassenaar first tried to block his entry, and then claimed he killed him. Wassenaar also asserted that he warned prison officials before they placed Alvarez in his cell.

Now he likely faces a capital trial, which will be mostly symbolic.

Wassenaar is already 62, going on 63. It could take five years for him to go to trial, and, if he’s convicted, another 20 or so years awaiting execution as the lengthy post-conviction appeals process plays out. At that point, he would be in his late 80s — if he is alive at all — before an execution could be carried out.

But he probably won’t have to suffer another cellmate.