There were three more deaths at Parchman over the past week, although none of them appear to be connected with the riots that started the year at the prison.
The first inmate was found deceased over the weekend, apparently by suicide.
Previous reports indicated five inmates died by suicide in 2019, and suicides have been on the rise at the prison since 2014, when there were zero reported, according to the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.
According to a release from Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton, offender Gabriel Carmen was found hanging in his cell by two Mississippi Department of Corrections officers on Saturday evening.
Burton said, “At 6:41 p.m., the person that was cleaning the hall alerted the two officers that he was hanging, and they immediately ran to the cell to check on him.” According to her, she received the call from MDOC Security at Parchman at 7:23 p.m., advising her of Carmen’s death in Unit 29 Holding.
The coroner said she arrived at the unit at 8:27 p.m., and began her investigation. According to her release, the officers last saw Carmen personally during a security check at 6:20 p.m. “The officers noted the offender to be irate and throwing feces on the wall in the hall,” she said.
Burton added that prison security personnel attempted to enter the cell, but the cell lock was jammed from the inside with a pipe that Carmen had apparently removed from the toilet. “Maintenance had to respond to assist in opening the cell door so the medical staff could get to the offender,” she said.
Burton said Akeem Adebayo, MD, pronounced Carmen dead at 7:21 p.m. “These are the facts of the case, as they were given to me and upon my observation. Mr. Carmen was removed from the unit by MDOC medical staff and was transported to the State Medical Examiner for autopsy in accordance with state law. Official cause of death and manner of death are pending autopsy results,” said Burton.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections has experienced over a half dozen deaths in state prisons since the start of the new year and in response to claims made by the families of the victims that they have been deprived of information, Burton had this to say. “I recently saw a protest rally where victim’s families stated they were not advised by MDOC of the details surrounding the death of their loved ones. I was unaware that they were not given details, so I have personally spoken to Mr. Carmen’s parents to express my condolences and offer answers to their questions.”
Two more inmates at Parchman lost their lives late Monday or early Tuesday morning.
According to Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton, Timothy Hudspeth and another inmate, James Talley were both pronounced dead early Tuesday morning.
“Both victims appear to have died from blunt force beating injuries,” Burton said in a release on Monday afternoon.
Burton said based on the information she has received, the deaths appear to be the result of an isolated altercation and not connected to the early January riots that rocked the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Burton was notified at 5:20 a.m. on Tuesday morning of the two deaths by a nurse at Parchman, she said.
She arrived at 6:16 a.m. and began her investigation into the first victim, Talley. The offender, she said, had been taken to the ER at 2:52 a.m., and he became unresponsive and CPR was administered at 4:45 a.m. by medical staff.
“All efforts to revive were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at 5:28 a.m.,” Burton said.
After photographing the victim at the ER, she was escorted to Unit 30 B Building to the second inmate, she said.
Hudspeth was deceased in a bed inside the unit, she said, and he had been pronounced dead by Angela Brown, CNP at 5:10 a.m.
As per usual, Burton culminated her statements with a request to please keep the MDOC staff, inmates, their families and especially the Carmen family in prayers and to direct any further questions to MDOC. “May God bless you all,” she said.
