Two Men Arrested in Stabbing Death of Lostprophets Singer Ian Watkins

Two men were arrested on suspicion of murder in the death of Ian Watkins, the Lostprophets singer and convicted pedophile who was stabbed and killed in prison Saturday.

The BBC reports that two men, aged 25 and 43, were arrested in connection to Watkins’ death, and that a murder investigation is currently underway. The suspects’ identities were not revealed by police, and authorities had no further comment pending the investigation.

Watkins was killed at the age of 48 on Saturday at West Yorkshire, England’s HMP Wakefield prison, where the former singer was serving a 29-year sentence after pleading guilty to 13 charges, including the attempted rape of a fan’s baby and making child pornography.

Watkins was previously attacked at the jail in August 2023 by three other prisoners, an incident that left him with neck injuries which required hospital treatment. England’s HMP Wakefield is considered one of the country’s most notorious prisons, and dubbed the “Monster Mansion” as its residents include serial killers, murderers and pedophiles.

As the BBC notes, Watkins’ stabbing death comes just weeks after a chief inspector of prisons’ report that revealed attacks at HMP Wakefield had “increased markedly.” “Many prisoners told us they felt unsafe, particularly older men convicted of sexual offenses who increasingly shared the prison with a growing cohort of younger prisoners,” the report found.

In 2019, Watkins was given 10 additional months in prison after a mobile phone was found in his possession; he argued that he was forced by other prisoners to hold onto the phone. While fighting the charges, Watkins refrained from revealing which prisoners gave him the phone out of fear, saying he was locked up with “murderers, mass murderers, rapists, pedophiles, serial killers – the worst of the worst.”