A convicted killer from Columbia who is serving a 30-year prison sentence for murder is now accused of killing an inmate at the maximum-security Jefferson City Correctional Center (JCCC).
A Cole County grand jury has indicted 38-year-old Zachariah Joel Peterson for second degree murder and for violence to an inmate in the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Court documents say Peterson killed the other inmate at JCCC on May 2 by striking him. Peterson’s initial court appearance in the new murder case is set for July 16.
Peterson was convicted of second degree murder for the 2011 shooting death of James Leon Porter at a south Columbia mobile home park. Testimony at the trial indicated Porter had been shot five times.
What’s next: Peterson remains incarcerated at JCCC for the murder conviction in the 2011 case. He is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the prison murder case on July 16 in Cole County Circuit Court, before Judge Christopher Limbaugh.