CONVICTED KILLER KILLED TWICE MORE IN PRISON TO BE IN A CELL ALONE, HIS BONE-CHILLING CONFESSION REVEALS
ANDREW HERNANDEZ CONFESSED TO STRANGLING CELL-MATE EVAN COLVIN WITH A SHOELACE IN 2024 BECAUSE HE WANTED TO BE IN A CELL BY HIMSELF. WHEN NEW YORK STATE PRISON OFFICIALS PUT MICHAEL CAMPBELL IN A CELL WITH HERNANDEZ TWO YEARS LATER, HE DID IT AGAIN
Andrew Hernandez pleaded guilty to murdering his mother in 2001 and cell-mate Michael Campbell in 2026. He also confessed to killing a second cell-mate, Even Colvin, in 2024.
MALONE, NEW YORK Oct. 28, 2026
The mother-killing maniac sentenced to life in prison without parole last week for strangling his cell-mate with a shoelace at a "supermax" prison in New York's Adirondack mountains made a bone-chilling confession to not just that murder but a third killing officials previously declared was a "suicide."
"The method I chose to kill him was the same one that I devised two years ago in Collins," Andrew Hernandez told police after killing Michael Campbell in the cell they shared at the Upstate Correctional Facility Apr. 6, 2026.
His "method" was strangulation, by shoelace.
"I came up with an improvised garotte," Hernandez confessed.
Hernandez, now 42, first pleaded guilty to shooting his mother in the back of the head as an 18-year-old high school senior in 2001. Police claimed he planned to shoot up the school, but turned himself in instead.
Sentenced to 19 1/2-years-to-life, Hernandez was eligible for parole in 2021. He was denied but about to be considered for parole a second time when Evan Colvin was found strangled dead with a shoelace around his neck in the cell he shared with Hernandez at the Collins Correctional Facility Feb. 20, 2024.
Hernandez confessed killing Colvin to "everybody," a Correction Officer there told us, but the Erie County Medical Examiner called it a suicide.
In his confession to Campbell's 2026 killing, Hernandez blamed both deaths on guards for putting him in a cell with other prisoners in the first place.
"I said 'I'm going to kill Mike because what the fuck do I have to do to get people to understand I'm not playing by the rules?,'" Hernandez told police. "The reason I had to kill him was because they need to know I can't be double-bunked."
Hernandez said he repeatedly warned prison officials he would "hurt" anyone they put in a cell with him.
"I have told the COs and Sergeants at all the facilities I've been incarcerated at that I can't be double-bunked or I would hurt someone," Hernandez added. "I liked Mike and didn't want to kill him but it was something that had to be done."
Michael Campbell (L) with his mother. Photo credit: unknown prison visiting room photographer.
Hernandez was transferred to Upstate Mar. 9, 2026, according to his confession.
Upstate is the state prison system's disciplinary jail. It can house 1,500 prisoners in 750 double-cells. A few hundred "cadre" feed, cloth and clean-up after the other 1,200 or so—who are there because they've violated institutional rules in regular prisons and were sentenced to disciplinary segregation.
Despite a 2022 state law meant to make disciplinary segregation more humane called the Humane Alternatives to Solitary Confinement or HALT Act, double-celling is the norm in disciplinary segregation units around the state, including Upstate. Exceptions can be made, for medical, security and other reasons. One was made for Hernandez, at first.
"It was well-known he shouldn't have gone in a cell with anybody," a former Upstate Correction Officer, where Hernandez killed Campbell, told us. "Everyone was aware of that because of what happened at Collins."
"I told the sergeant when I first arrived that I needed to be placed in a single cell," Hernandez explained in his confession. "By the next morning, they moved me to a single cell."
That changed three weeks later, Apr. 1.
Campbell, it appears, was chosen to be Hernandez's cell-mate because he'd previously been assaulted and was also in a single cell by himself, according to Hernandez's confession and Campbell’s medical records.
"I knew I had to kill Mike from the minute I stepped in the cell with him," Hernandez told police. "If I had a gun, I would have shot him in the head as soon as that door closed."
To make certain guards didn't stop him in the middle of murdering Campbell, Hernandez said, he had to do it "quickly and silently."
If he tried to beat Campbell to death that might make a noise, Hernandez coldly calculated, and "the guards are going to come running."
If that happened, he added, they were "going to give me another bunky who might beat the shit out of me, right?"
Evan Colvin. Hernandez confessed to killing him in 2024 the same way and for the same reasons he killed Michael Campbell in 2026. Photo credit: Evan Colvin, via his brother James McAlister.
While he planned Campbell's murder, Hernandez studied the guards.
"Every group of officers," Hernandez observed, has "a different style of doing their job."
He needed to map out "the way the COs do their rounds." He had to know "exactly when they would come by."
Meanwhile, he said, "I made a 'garrotte' from shoelaces and paper. It essentially worked like a noose with one handle."
He also "discovered in the cell that there is a perfect impromptu garrotting chair. That's the ladder."
Hernandez said Campbell was "reading a book facing away from me" when he dropped the garrotte over his head.
"I did it perfectly and I dumped it right around his neck," Hernandez bragged.
He yanked Campbell to the floor and "ran towards the door." Then he "put the handles of the garrotte through the ladder and used my feet as leverage." He "kept pulling" and "kept pulling" until Campbell’s chest stopped moving.
"I'm like counting 1001,” Hernandez admitted. “ I get to 100, I start over."
"Once Mike was dead," he said, "I changed my clothes and folded them on the top bunk."
He pulled Campbell's corpse out of the cell into the small, caged, concrete-floored outdoor recreation area outside the cell's rear door.
"I didn't want him in the cell," Hernandez explained. "I wanted his body out of the cell so I could tidy up everything."
He draped a blanket over the body.
"It just seemed appropriate," Hernandez said. "I just put Mikey out there like he's the trash."
Michael Campbell’s other speaking in court when Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison for killing her son by Franklin County judge Craig Carriero. Photo credit: framegrab, NBC5.
Back inside the cell, by himself, "I separated our belongings. I put my items on the top bunk and Mike's on the bottom bunk."
Later, when guards looked into the cell for one of the many daily counts, he told them “my bunkee was lying face down and was irresponsive."
Guards handcuffed Hernandez and moved him to another cell, by himself.
"Mike died peacefully," Hernandez insisted.
Colvin, the prisoner found dead at Collins in 2024, was in a cell with Hernandez identical to the one Hernandez killed Campbell in at Upstate. That includes the ladder, which Colvin's corpse was leaning against when it was found, the former Collins officer said.
Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Keane re-opened the case last week, The Free Lance News reported Sunday.
"Due to ongoing investigations by the New York State Police and DOCCS Office of Special Investigations, the Department has no comment at this time," DOCCS spokesman Thomas Mailey said in an emailed statement.
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