NATION : Yablonski Killer Dies in Prison
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DALLAS, Pa. — A former United Mine Workers official serving life in prison for his role in the 1969 slayings of union dissident Joseph (Jock) Yablonski and his family has died in his cell, officials said today.
William Prater was found at 6:10 a.m. today at the State Correctional Institution in Luzerne County. A prison spokesman said Prater, who was 70, apparently died of natural causes.
Prater was sentenced in 1973 and was serving three life sentences for the murders.
Yablonski, 59, was shot to death along with his wife, Margaret, 57, and their 25-year-old daughter, Charlotte, at their Clarksville, Pa., home on New Year’s Eve in 1969. Yablonski had lost an election for UMW president earlier that December.
His opponent, then-incumbent UMW president, W. A. (Tony) Boyle, was later convicted of ordering the assassination.
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