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ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEDINA COUNTY INMATE DIES IN PRISON

Starcher, 40, assaulted while in cell with another man for disciplinary reasons

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Akron Beacon Journal June 13, 2007

A Medina County inmate serving time at the Pickaway Correctional Institution was assaulted inside a cell and died a day later at a hospital, authorities said.

Rodney Starcher, 40, died Sunday at Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Starcher was assaulted about 11:30 a.m. Saturday while inside a segregation cell with another inmate, officials said.

They were being kept apart from other inmates for disciplinary reasons, Dean said.

State Highway Patrol investigators are gathering evidence and taking statements from witnesses that will be turned over to prosecutors, who will decide whether criminal charges are filed, said Lt. Tony Bradshaw, a patrol spokesman.

Starcher was serving a one-year sentence out of Medina County for failure to comply. He began serving the term Oct. 12.

Another Pickaway inmate, Andrew Stein, was assaulted Jan. 22 while in a prison hospital and died Feb. 4.

The Pickaway County prosecutor is awaiting final autopsy results before pursuing charges in the death, which a patrol investigation concluded was a homicide.

Stein, 47, was to have been released in July after a two-year sentence on a domestic violence conviction for beating his former wife. He was from Harrison, near Cincinnati.

THOMAS RAYMOND BROTHERTON
ELMER ELI TUCKER
DELBERT OSBORNE JR.
UNNAMED MALE INMATE

NEWS ENQUIRER
BY JESSICA BROWN
April 9, 2007

INMATE DIES AFTER HANGING

FOURTH SUCH DEATH SINCE JUNE

An inmate at the Butler County Jail died in a hospital Sunday after he was found hanging in a jail cell.

The 19-year-old man was at least the fourth inmate to apparently commit suicide at the jail since June.

On Saturday, a corrections officer found him hanging by a bed sheet in his cell at 5:10 p.m. in the main correctional complex on Hanover Street in Hamilton.

He was taken to the Fort Hamilton Hospital, then transported to University Hospital in Cincinnati, where he remained Sunday, jail officials said. Jail officials announced he died around 5:25 p.m.

The inmate had been in prison for about three weeks on charges that included robbery and possession of drugs, according to the sheriff's office.

Jail officials said more information is expected to be released today.

The death came about a week after the March 31 death of Thomas Raymond Brotherton, 49, of West Chester Township. He had been booked in Jan. 16 for a parole violation.

Authorities in Bergen County, N.J., had ordered a hold on him.

In June 2006, two Butler County jail inmates died a week apart. Elmer Eli Tucker, 38, of Eaton, died June 17 and Delbert Osborne Jr., 19, of Hamilton, died June 22.

Corrections officers found all three men hanging in their cells.

The American Civil Liberties Union sought an investigation into the June deaths.

RODNEY JOHNSON

Associated Press
July 05, 2007

INMATES BLAME PRISON STAFFER FOR INJURIES FROM LIGHTNING

Recreation chief forced them to finish ballgame in storm, 2 suits allege

COLUMBUS - A recreation director at an Ohio prison threatened inmates with a loss of privileges if they stopped a softball game during a storm from which lightning later killed one prisoner and injured several others, according to two inmate lawsuits.

Scott Tomlison, activity therapist at Chillicothe Correctional Institution in south-central Ohio, told prisoners they would lose recreational activities for six months if they didn't keep playing during the storm on June 29, 2005, according to a lawsuit filed in the Ohio Court of Claims.

Former inmate Barrel Brown said he and several other prisoners asked Tomlison to stop the game on an outdoor field as part of an inmate softball league. The fields are inside the prison walls.

``Tomlison refused to call off the game and ordered the inmates to continue playing,'' said Brown's June 27 lawsuit, which said he was seriously injured by the lightning strike.

A similar lawsuit, filed last year in federal court, says Tomlison forced inmates to play despite the lightning and even though another game had been called off.

Eddie Mack said that he and other inmates asked that the game be called, fearing the storm would ``cause injuries to players,'' according to the lawsuit filed Feb. 6, 2006, in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

Mack, in a lawsuit he filed himself, said he had pain, spasms and tingling throughout his body.

Tomlison declined to comment. Prisons spokeswoman Andrea Dean said the agency does not discuss pending litigation. She said Tomlison was not disciplined ``because he didn't do anything wrong.''

The Ohio attorney general's office is reviewing Brown's lawsuit.

In response to the lawsuit filed by Mack, the state said it did nothing wrong and the suit should be dismissed, according to documents filed with U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley.

A report by Tomlison obtained by the Associated Press shows he let the game continue as the storm began.

``It started to rain about 7:50 p.m. on the north ball diamond but not bad enough to call the ballgame,'' the report said. ``I watched the weather and continued the game because it was the last inning and almost over.''

The report said Tomlison then called the game on the prison's south field because it was only half over.

At that point, referring to the north field, ``Lightning was spotted around the field, and before I was able to get the game stopped, two bolts of lightning crashed around the 1st and second base areas,'' Tomlison's report said.

Other guards' reports show prison officials took the storm seriously even before the lightning strike.

At 7:59 p.m., prison officials ordered vehicles to patrol the perimeter because of the weather, according to one report. Such action is normal during storms in case fences are affected by high winds or lightning, Dean said.

But reports also show a swift storm that moved in fast with relatively little time to react.

``Within a minute or so after the rain began, I heard thunder followed by lightning,'' said another guard's report. ``At that time, I heard radio traffic stating a inmate was down on the north ball field.''

Brown was hospitalized at Adena Regional Medical Center for almost a month, his lawyer, Todd Mollaun, said Tuesday.

Tomlison, 34, has a bachelor's degree from Glenville State College in West Virginia, where he played football and studied sports management and marketing, according to his state personnel file. Tomlison, who also played semiprofessional football with the Syracuse Storm, started at the Chillicothe prison in 1999.

Brown, 33, served 10 years for voluntary manslaughter in Hamilton County before being released to a halfway house in 2005.

Mack, 46, of Butler County is still in the Chillicothe prison serving seven years on robbery convictions in Butler County.

The lightning strike killed inmate Rodney Johnson, 40, of Hamilton County, who was serving a five-year sentence for robbery. The strike injured six other inmates and two guards.

DELBERT OSBORNE JR.

BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN
ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
June 23, 2006

ANOTHER BUTLER INMATE FOUND HANGED

HAMILTON – The second inmate in a week has been discovered hanging in his cell at the Butler County Jail.

Corrections officers found Delbert Osborne Jr., 19, of Hamilton, dead about 7:15 p.m. Thursday, sheriff’s officials said. An autopsy will be performed today to determine if Osborne committed suicide.

Osborne was arrested in April on receiving stolen property, burglary and felonious assault charges, according to court documents. He was due in Butler County Common Pleas Court July 11 for a hearing to plead or set a trial date.

Osborne was alone in his cell, but was not on a suicide watch, deputies said.

"We had a lot of problems out of him," said Lt. Mike Craft, deputy jail warden. "He has had fights in here and he was bunked by himself for other peoples' safety."

A corrections officer had seen Osborne alive in his cell when he was served dinner about 45 minutes before he was found hanging.

Jail standards call for inmates to be checked every hour.

In the previous case, the coroner has not officially ruled on the cause of death of Elmer Eli Tucker, 38, of Eaton, who was found hanging in his cell June 17. But officials have said it was an apparent suicide.

Tucker had been jailed for six days on felony drug charges.

GARRY D. OWENS

ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press
Mon, Jun. 06, 2005

PRISON SYSTEM REPORTS FOURTH INMATE SUICIDE OF YEAR

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Contrary to a consultant's recommendation for helping to prevent suicides, the state is screening some but not all inmates entering segregation units.

The prison system, which had 1,507 inmates in segregation Monday, does not have enough employees to undertake such a review, officials said.

"It's going to be very fairly staff intensive and we don't have the staff to be able to do that," said Debbie Nixon-Hughes, chief of mental health services for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Four inmates have committed suicide this year, including an inmate in segregation who hanged himself Saturday. That death, which led to the suspension of two guards, was the latest in a series that included a record 11 suicides last year.

Garry D. Owens, 31, of Lucas County, was found dead in his segregation cell Saturday night at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, prisons spokeswoman Andrea Dean said Monday.

Owens, serving a 15 years-to-life sentence for murder, hanged himself with a bedsheet attached to the cell door, said Sgt. Stephanie Norman of the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

He'd been in segregation because of a fight with another inmate last Thursday.

The state placed two guards at the prison on paid leave while investigating Owens' death. Dean said there was evidence the two may not have been doing their jobs, but she would not elaborate.

Kyle Burdett, 21, was hired in October and William Riffle, 31, was hired in January 2004. Both earn $30,400. Messages were left seeking comment.

In a 34-page report released last November, consultant Lindsay Hayes said the state has strong suicide prevention measures in place but made some recommendations for change, including the screening of all inmates in segregation.

Hayes said inmates accustomed to privileges in the regular prison population often suffer a shock when disciplined, placing them at a higher risk for suicide.

"Losing all that which they had earned becomes quite a devastation to them, and one reaction to that might be a suicide attempt," said Hayes, project director of the Baltimore-based National Center on Institutions and Alternatives.

Of the four inmates who committed suicide this year, Owens was the only one in segregation.

At Hayes' recommendation, the state in April began screening all segregated inmates with previously identified mental health problems, as well as inmates in protective custody.

The latter are inmates who fear some kind of harm in prison.

Last month, an inmate at the Correctional Reception Center near Columbus hanged himself with a bed sheet, and an inmate on death row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution hanged himself with a nylon belt that he tied around the frame of his bunk bed.

An inmate at the Warren Correctional Institution near Lebanon hanged himself in February.

Nationally, the inmate suicide rate is 13 deaths for every 100,000 prisoners, Hayes said.

"It's going to take at least a several-month period of time for all those corrective actions to be in place," Hayes said Monday.

"They're not meant to eliminate inmate suicides," he said. "Every system will have inmate suicides, particularly a system as large as the state of Ohio. The goal is to strive to keep them as low as possible."

Prison officials and the State Highway Patrol are investigating Owens' death.

ANDREW STEIN

Associated Press
Last Updated: 11:50 am | Friday, February 16, 2007

INMATE BEATEN, KILLED AT PRISON HOSPITAL

COLUMBUS, Ohio - An inmate was beaten to death while in a prison hospital to receive a pacemaker, and investigators are about ask a grand jury to charge another inmate who is a suspect, the State Highway Patrol said Friday.

Andrew Stein, 47, of Harrison, died Feb. 4 at Ohio State University Medical Center after his daughter asked that life support be withdrawn, the state prisons department said. He had been assaulted on Jan. 22 while in the medical wing of Pickaway Correctional Institution in Orient, where he was having a pacemaker implanted because of a heart attack.

The State Highway Patrol has interviewed several witnesses and a suspect who is another inmate, but his name won't be released unless the grand jury decides to charge him, said Sgt. Brett Gockstetter, patrol spokesman. Stein's skull was fractured in the beating, but no weapon was used, he said.

A message seeking comment was left for Pickaway County Prosecutor Judy Wolford.

Stein was to have been released in July after a two-year sentence on a domestic violence conviction for beating his former wife.

His daughter, Kristy McArthur, asked that life support be removed because he had expressed his wishes about being comatose in a letter from prison.

McArthur, 22, complained that the shackles holding each wrist to the side of the bed were not removed after he died.

''I know he was a prisoner, but he was gone,'' she said. ''Let him die with some dignity.''

Department policy is to remove the shackles only when requested by medical staff for a procedure or when the inmate is removed from the hospital room, said Andrea Dean, spokeswoman for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Services are 7:30 tonight at Evans Funeral Home in Milford.

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