A Pine Township man recently convicted of the first-degree murder of his mother has committed suicide in prison.

Mercer County District Attorney James P. Epstein said this morning he confirmed Shane Sloan, 29, hanged himself at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh, formerly known as Western Penitentiary. Epstein said he had no other information.

Carol Scire, administrative assistant to the superintendent at the State Correctional Institution, said Sloan was found in his cell at 2:05 a.m. today. Ms. Scire said she doesn't know how long Sloan was there before he was found, and the Allegheny County Coroner's office is investigating.

Ms. Scire would not say what Sloan -- who was lodged in the facility since Tuesday -- used to hang himself. She did confirm that Sloan was due to be sent to the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill near Harrisburg, the state's largest prison.

Sloan was found guilty May 24 of strangling his mother, Susan LaRue Fleeger, in February 2001 in the Pine Township trailer they shared. Sloan was sentenced to life in state prison with no chance of parole.

During Sloan's trial his attorneys made a "diminished capacity" defense, which claimed that at the time of the killing Sloan was suffering from a mental disorder and incapable of forming the specific intent to kill his mother, Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael J. Wherry said.

Sloan was diagnosed with bipolar disorder -- a manic depressive disorder marked by emotional highs and lows.

Attorneys said Sloan was trying to kill himself when his mother interrupted, and Sloan tried to knock her out by punching her in the face so that he could go through with the suicide attempt. When punching her didn't work, Sloan strangled her first with his left hand and then with a bloody towel.

Sloan testified that he was depressed and that he panicked when his mother knocked on the bathroom door during his second suicide attempt of the morning.

"There was no way I was going to be committed," he said.

The day Sloan murdered his mother he was supposed to report to Mercer County Jail to begin serving a 12-day sentence for failing to pay fines for retail theft.

Epstein said Sloan's was the first murder case he remembers in which the accused used a mental illness defense and testified.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Kristen Garrett at

kgarrett@sharon-herald.com