San Quentin death row inmate dies of unknown causes

A death row inmate at San Quentin State Prison who was convicted of three murders during a robbery in Sacramento County died of unknown causes at a hospital Thursday, a prison official said.

James David Majors, 69, was pronounced dead at 7:30 a.m. at a nearby hospital, San Quentin State Prison Lt. Sam Robinson said. The cause of death is pending an autopsy.

Majors was on death row since February 1991. He was sentenced to death for the Jan. 25, 1989, robbery and first-degree murder of Thomas Probst, Jeanine Copeland and Patrick Mungavin at a Fair Oaks residence, Robinson said.

Majors and his accomplice Robert Reese went to Sacramento from Arizona to buy a pound of methamphetamine. They shot and killed the three adult occupants of a residence and took the drug, money and jewelry from a safe, Robinson said.

Copeland’s 8-year-old son found the bodies. Reese was shot to death a month after the slayings, Robinson said.