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SOUTH SALT LAKE — A Salt Lake man who was being held in jail awaiting sentencing for attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend was charged Wednesday with trying to kill a fellow inmate.
Ruben Sal Roybal, 45, was convicted of attempted murder on Dec. 2. Roybal stabbed his former girlfriend multiple times in the neck, chest and abdomen, and then dragged her by her hair on the ground as he drove across a parking lot in 2019.
Then on Dec. 17, while Roybal was being held in the Salt Lake County Jail waiting to be sentenced in that case, police say he wrapped a towel around his hands and entered another inmate's cell. The inmate said Roybal asked him if he wanted to be cellmates, to which the inmate told him no, and criticized him for walking into another person's cell, charging documents state.
"Roybal left and kept walking around with a towel wrapped around each hand 'like he was going to choke somebody,'" the inmate told deputies, according to the charges. "(The inmate) said that after lunch, he went to sleep and then woke up to Roybal kneeling on top of him with a cane across his throat 'pushing down hard' and 'trying to literally kill me.'"
Other inmates got the attention of jailers and told them, "He's trying to kill him." Deputies found Roybal pressing a metal cane "tightly" to the other inmate's throat, the charges say. When deputies finally ripped the cane away from Roybal, he "immediately reengaged a chokehold" on the inmate and several deputies had to pull Roybal off the inmate, police said.
The injured inmate told deputies he saw "stars in a tunnel, a purple tunnel" while being attacked, according to the charges.
On Jan. 23, Roybal was sentenced to a term of 16 years to life in the Utah State Prison for the attack on his ex-girlfriend. Prosecutors say that incident happened just two months after Roybal had been paroled for a previous aggravated assault conviction.
Roybal was charged in connection with the jail attack on Wednesday. He is charged in 3rd District Court with attempted murder and aggravated assault by a prisoner causing injury, first-degree felonies. If convicted, prosecutors have requested that Roybal be classified as a habitual violent offender, which would make him eligible for enhanced penalties.
