SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A San Diego man awaiting trial for murder raped his jail cellmate decades ago after threatening to poke the man’s eyes out, according to court records obtained by Team 10.
Dwight Rhone, 74, made the threat in 1980 while in jail awaiting extradition to Texas.
"I could poke your eyes out with the strength I have over you or I could crack my skull if I don't get enough thrill out of that,” Rhone said, according to a 2019 sentencing memorandum.
On Wednesday, Rhone was named a person of interest by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office after human remains were discovered a day earlier at his former home in Southcrest.
Team 10 has reviewed hundreds of pages of court documents that paint a troubling picture of Rhone’s past.
The records show he raped his cellmate in 1980, hours after making the disturbing comment about poking his eyes out.
“Defendant stated he was already going to prison, so he did not care if victim reported him to police,” one court filing says.
Later that night, Rhone grabbed the victim by the throat, slammed his head against the cell wall, and repeatedly punched the victim before forcibly sodomizing him, the document says.
'Junkie at heart'
Rhone was convicted of sodomy in a custodial setting and was mandated to register as a sex offender, which he has failed to do numerous times over the years.
The 1980 incident is one of over a dozen violent felonies Rhone, a self-admitted drug addict, has on his record.
"I like to get high. I'm a junkie at heart, but I know I need help,” he said in a 2007 psychological evaluation obtained by Team 10.
Rhone’s crimes include multiple armed robberies, perjury, and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
DA opposed release
“Over the past 50 years, defendant has committed an almost incomprehensible number of crimes with the consistency of a clock,” Deputy District Attorney Zachary Wallace wrote in a 2019 filing.
“There is not a moment in defendant's life where he has been out of custody and remained law-abiding. Even when defendant is in custody, he manages to commit crimes.”
Rhone’s most recent alleged crime is murder. He is accused of shooting Bernardo Moreno twice in the head in 2023 before lighting his body on fire on the side of the freeway.
“This is something that is extremely violent and unusual for individuals to do. Even those people who murder other people,” said retired FBI special agent Jennifer Coffindaffer.
Court documents say Rhone was angry after Moreno stabbed his dog to break up a dog fight.
Detectives were able to crack the 2023 case after obtaining cellphone data and DNA evidence.
Rotisserie chicken bag used as evidence
After the killing, Rhone, a tradesman, tried to use Moreno’s debit card to buy a glass pipe at a smoke shop. He then robbed a woman in Carlsbad at gunpoint, according to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant, while carrying an empty plastic rotisserie chicken bag
"A gray and red Boston Red Sox cap and a Vons Rotisserie chicken bag were recovered as evidence and later swabbed from DNA. The DNA swabs were tested against a reference sample for defendant, and it was determined to be a direct match with the DNA lifted from the bag," a court document from the DA opposing bail states.
Later that year, after being arrested again, the FBI started monitoring Rhone’s jail calls.
“Defendant mentioned he would ‘go to death row’ for his dog, and that defendant referenced the dogfight incident involving Moreno,” a filing states.
The district attorney’s office alleges Rhone also sent letters from jail to a friend, asking the person to hide Moreno’s truck because “he was involved in a certain incident on a felony scale.”
Rhone has not been charged with a crime related to the discovery of the human remains in Southcrest. Law enforcement has not disclosed any more details about the remains or said whether there is more than one victim.
Rhone remains in county jail and is set to appear in court next week in the Moreno case.
