Inmate faces death penalty in cellmate's death

CARLISLE, Ind. Thirty-year-old Zachariah Melcher of Jeffersonville is charged in the strangulation death of 28-year-old Nicholas Roman at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle in March.

Melcher is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the 2006 murders of his infant son, wife and unborn child.

At a court hearing in June, Melcher told the judge he wanted to represent himself, but the judge appointed two attorneys to represent him. Sullivan County Prosecutor Robert Springer said this week he still pushing for a death sentence.

Melcher's trial is scheduled to begin in February.