A US Navy veteran denounced Hawaii’s lax prison policies for placing his father in a cell with a satanic “phrogger,” who beat him to death while hapless guards failed to open the door due to allegedly faulty locks.
Nelson Coburn condemned a series of failings that allowed mentally ill Satanist Ezequiel Zayas to be placed in a cell with his father Vance Grace, 62, who was just weeks away from freedom after spending 34 years behind bars for theft and drug offenses.
With dreams of starting a Koy Pond business in Hawaii and reconnecting with his family, Grace was placed in a cell with then 29-year-old Zayas, who made headlines the year before in 2019 when he was caught trying secretly lived in a family’s home in Honolulu. The crime known as ‘phrogging’ is named after the practice of jumping someone into their home.
After Zayas was discovered, the family later realized that he planned to perform nightmarish operations on them. Despite his apparent mental illness, he ended up in a cell with Grace, prompting his son to speak out about the short-sighted policies that resulted in his father’s gruesome death.
“The problem is no one says anything, and you think, ‘It’s just another inmate murdered in prison, oh well, he’s a criminal,’” Coburn told DailyMail.com. “My father did his time and worked to improve his life.”
Ezequiel Zayas pictured at Campbell’s home, where he had written disturbing plans to perform ‘sexual reconstruction’ surgeries and ‘hand transplants’
Zayas was caught secretly living in James and Brittany Campbell’s (pictured) home in 2019 before they discovered he was planning to perform nightmarish operations on them
MOVED TO THE HOME OF IGNORANT FAMILY AND PLANS ‘SEXUAL RECONSTRUCTION’ OPERATIONS ON THEM
Zayas rose to notoriety in September 2019, when he was secretly caught living in the home of James and Brittany Campbell and their two young sons as they returned from a week’s holiday.
After initially believing it was a frightening burglary, they realized Zayas was wearing their clothes, and ultimately discovered they were victims of a crime that will strike fear in the hearts of homeowners everywhere.
They discovered a “manifesto” written by the Creeper, detailing gruesome plans for the family, including “sexual reconstruction” surgery and a “hand transplant.”
“There were all these typewritten notes called ‘The Omnivore Trials: A Rehabilitation for Ratty People,'” James Campbell said on the Lifetime True Crime Show ‘Phrogging: Hider in My House.’
“That’s when we realized this person had been in our home for a lot longer,” his wife Brittany told the newspaper New York Post after the terrifying discovery, including diary entries about turning the family from omnivores into ‘Ezequiels’.
“He wanted to play doctor with us — and not in the cute little kid way,” Brittany said. “(He wrote about) how to make us perfect people.”
Zayas, with no medical training, had even placed knives around the house in preparation, while also completely vandalizing their home and recording an apparently naked video using their belongings.
James said he realized the intruder hadn’t just broken in when he saw Zayas wearing his clothes, before finding the killer’s gruesome ‘manifesto’.
Zayas recorded an apparently naked video on the family’s laptop, using their belongings while they were unaware he was inside
The family’s home in Honolulu was destroyed and litter was strewn across the property after the Campbell’s returned from a week-long vacation in September 2019.
SYSTEM ERRORS PROVIDE A CRAZY OPPORTUNITY TO STRIKE AGAIN
Shockingly, the then 29-year-old was only charged with burglary and was released after being released on supervised release, which James said was “terrifying that he’s out.”
Just weeks later, Zayas was arrested again for vandalizing a Buddhist temple near the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
While in custody at the Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) for that crime in August 2020, Zayas contracted Covid-19 and was confined to a secure cell with Grace and a third inmate, who had also come into contact with the virus.
At the time, Covid-19 was rampant in the US, and Hawaii had offered low-risk prisoners like Grace the chance for early release.
Grace was just a month away from being released anyway, and Coburn said he refused to post his early bail, a decision that left him wondering “what if.”
Locked in a cage with a man with a violent, disturbing history, Grace was brutally attacked in an episode deemed completely ‘unprovoked’ by a judge. Coburn said his father and the inmate “were not bothering anyone” when Zayas flew into a jail. pleasure.
Both men urgently begged for help from prison guards as the attack broke out, with Zayas mercilessly punching and stomping on Grace.
“Because of his mental state, he should have been in his own cell,” Coburn says now works as a real estate agenttold DailyMail.com.
When guards arrived, they reportedly realized the locks on the cell were stuck.
The only solution to stop the vicious attack was for the other inmate to activate an emergency release, allowing him and a guard to jointly open the door from either side – which immediately slammed shut after officials dragged Zayas away.
Grace lay on the cold room floor for a significant amount of time until a locksmith was called to open the door. While Grace was pronounced dead at a hospital, Coburn says he paid for a private autopsy that showed he likely died in the cell from blunt force trauma.
The Oahu Community Correctional Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by DailyMail.com.
Zayas was sentenced to 40 years in prison in August 2023 on charges of manslaughter in connection with Grace’s death, in addition to further charges of burglary and assault – an outcome that Coburn said could have been avoided had there not been a serious safety oversight.
“It’s sad that the system found (Zayas) a long time ago, and that all the people affected by him were the result of failings that happened long before anything happened to my father,” he said.
The brutal murder occurred while both Zayas and Grace were being held at the Oahu Community Correctional Facility in August 2020 (photo)
‘COMMON SENSE WOULD PREVENT BRUTAL MURDER’
Coburn claims that information surrounding his father’s death emerged slowly, and now three years later he is looking for answers about the brutal death and has filed a lawsuit against Hawaii and the Department of Public Safety.
“My father did his time, and in the end that’s why people are convicted, to do time for the crimes they committed,” he said. “But we still need to provide a level of security in the prison.
“The problem is that no one says anything, and you think, ‘It’s just another inmate murdered in prison, oh, he’s a criminal… My father did his time and worked to improve his life. ‘
In his filing, Coburn alleges that prison officials in Hawaii knowingly placed his father “in danger of serious harm and death” without regard to Zayas’ unhinged past.
He alleged that officials “failed to follow basic, common-sense correctional practices that could have prevented the brutal murder of Mr. Grace by a violent cellmate.”
Coburn insists he is not seeking money in his lawsuit, and only plans to “cause enough of a stir” to “bring attention to Hawaii’s prison systems.”
He added that he hopes to “make sure that we address these things and resolve them so that other people’s family members don’t have to go through something similar to what I went through.”
‘It’s clear he had psychological problems. Why weren’t there people advocating for him and helping him?’