Goodbye to the Sausage King

Stuart Alexander, the Sausage King of San Leandro, died in his prison cell today. He was on suidice watch. He was also on Death Row.

SFist has his bizarre story. Alexander was a handsome (looks a little like Howard Hughes, huh?) businessman and one-time mayoral candidate who went bezerk when he was visited by four state meat inspectors who had heard he wasn't cooking his sausage at a high enough temperature. Bezerk as in pulled out two guns, shot three of the inspectors dead, and chased the last one down the block. (Maybe that Howard Hughes resemblance included a little unhealthy paranoia).

That fourth inspector lived to tell harrowing tale, plus Alexander's business was full of surveillance cameras; he had pretty undisputably murdered the three inspectors in cold blood. That's what the jury who convicted him last year, thought, evidently. He would probably have lived 20 years on death row as his conviction went through the appeals process.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that the 44-year old was found alone in a cell with neither signs of suicide nor foul play. Which is the kind of puzzling detail that becomes fodder for paranoiacs. An autopsy is scheduled.