15th state inmate dies amid Mississippi prison crisis; cause under investigation

Lici Beveridge | Mississippi Clarion Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption Activists rally at Capitol for Mississippi prison reform Hundreds turned out to demand reform for Mississippi's troubled prison system in front of the Capitol building in Jackson on Friday, Jan. 24, 2020.

JACKSON, Miss. – Another state inmate death has been reported in Mississippi, at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, officials said in a news release.

Jesus Garcia, 39, was found lying in his cell on Saturday. He was unresponsive. Medical personnel were called and began life-saving measures, according to the release by Management and Training Corp.

Garcia was pronounced dead at 12:52 p.m.

The cause and manner of his death are under investigation. There were no obvious signs of assault, prison officials said.

Garcia was serving a 20-year sentence for capital rape from a DeSoto County case.

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He is the 15th inmate to die since Dec. 29 and the fifth in little more than a week.

On Thursday, Nora Ducksworth died at the Marshall County Correctional Facility. Initial indications were his death was the result of natural causes, but it remains under investigation.

Jermaine Tyler, 38, died Jan. 25, also at the Marshall County Correctional Facility, with "no initial signs of foul play," according to Management and Training Corp, the company that runs the facility.

A day later, 26-year-old Joshua Norman was found hanging in a one-man cell at Parchman.

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And on Jan. 28, Limarion Reaves, 28, was talking to a relative on a facility phone when he collapsed at the Kemper-Neshoba Regional Correctional Facility in DeKalb.

Last week, Mississippi lawmakers began introducing legislation that could help address some of the deadly problems in the state's prison system, which has been rocked by violence in recent weeks and long-deteriorated living conditions.

"We need to get started as quickly as possible," newly named House Corrections Chairman Kevin Horan, I-Grenada, told committee members in their first meeting Wednesday.

Horan told the committee to be ready to move quickly through legislation in the coming weeks.

In addition, a group of sheriffs visited the Capitol on Wednesday to advocate moving more medium-security prisoners to regional jails to take pressure off state facilities. They said the plan could save the state $22.5 million a year, because it costs about $14 more a day to house each inmate in a state-run facility compared with a county-managed one.

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Other recent inmate deaths include: