RALEIGH - A corrections officer on routine rounds at Central Prison found death row inmate Eric Queen hanging in a janitor's closet at approximately 7 p.m. Sunday. Queen was pronounced dead in the Central Prison emergency room at 7:19 pm.

As the Department of Correction conducts its own internal investigation, the State Bureau of Investigation has also been called in to investigate, as is routine in unnatural inmate deaths.

Queen, 28, was convicted of two counts of first degree murder, one count of attempted murder and several other related charges in connection with the August 1998 murders of Susan Moore and Tracy Lambert in Cumberland County. Debra Cheeseborough was shot several times in the same incident, but survived.

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