‘Zebra’ killer dies at San Quentin

A prison inmate known as one of San Francisco’s notorious “Zebra Killers” died at San Quentin on Thursday, prison officials said Friday.

J.C.X. Simon, 69, was found unresponsive in his cell late Thursday and pronounced dead just before midnight.

Simon was convicted of two counts of murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with a series of racially-motivated killings and attacks in San Francisco between October 1973 and April 1974 referred to as the “Zebra murders.”

Also convicted were Larry Green, 63, who remains incarcerated in Vacaville, Manuel Moore, 70, and Jessie Lee Cooks, 70. Simon and the other suspects were sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Simon’s cause of death remains unknown, pending autopsy results. Officials said he was housed in a single cell.