Man who killed two Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputies found dead

Timothy Russell, the man on death row for ambushing and killing two Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputies in 1997, is dead tonight after police say he took his own life in his San Quentin prison cell. Russell had been on death row at San Quentin since January 14, 1999 following his conviction and sentencing for the murders of deputies James Lehmann Jr. and Michael Haugen. Russell ambushed Haugen and Lehmann as they responded to a domestic violence call in Whitewater. In 2004, seven years after the attack, Riverside County honored the fallen officers renaming what was then Verbenia Avenue to Haugen Lehmann Way on Interstate Ten.