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20 Years Added To Inmate’s Prison Term In Cellmate’s Killing

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A South Dakota inmate must serve an additional 20 years in prison for strangling his cellmate to death with a homemade rope last year at the state penitentiary in Sioux Falls.

Twenty-nine-year-old Douglas Ipsen was sentenced Monday on a first-degree manslaughter charge in the death of inmate Kent Davidson. Judge Susan Sabers tacked on 20 years to the 75-year term that Ipsen is serving for rape and sexual contact charges involving children.

Davidson died Sept. 8. He was serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the 2013 shooting death of his former fiancée.

Defense attorney Kenneth Jacobs did not deny that Ipsen strangled Davidson, but argued that Ipsen helped Davidson kill himself. State law doesn’t allow for assisted suicide.