A Youngstown man has been sentenced to life in prison for the strangulation death of his cellmate at Warren Correctional Institution last year.

Jedidiah Hayes Lang, 43, pleaded guilty to murder on Tuesday in a Warren County court. Judge Donald E. Oda II sentenced him to the statutory sentence of 15 years to life, to run consecutively to his existing 15-years-to-life sentence for a 2013 murder conviction.

The incident occurred on October 26, 2023, when prison staff found Lang’s cellmate, Cody Bartimus, unresponsive in his cell during a routine check. Despite efforts to revive him, Bartimus was pronounced dead at a local hospital. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be strangulation.

According to the Warren County Prosecutor's Office, Lang admitted to investigators that he had intentionally strangled Bartimus with a towel. He told authorities that he had been planning to "rip his head off" and had been on top of Bartimus, pulling the towel around his neck for several minutes. Lang also admitted to having killed someone before.

Lang was already serving a sentence for a 2013 murder in Knox County, Ohio at the time of the incident. His new sentence means he will spend the rest of his life in prison.