Two more inmates at the Western Missouri Correctional Center died in custody Monday night. According to news releases from the Missouri Department of Corrections, both died of apparent natural causes.
Gregory Eaton and Frank Troya are at least the fourth and fifth detainees to die in custody at the prison in Cameron, Missouri in the last four weeks. On Sunday, Nicholas Legrand, another inmate at the facility, was pronounced dead at Heartland Regional Medical Center.
Eaton, 60, was serving two, eight-year sentences on DWI charges, one as a chronic offender in St Charles County, and the other from St Louis County. He was received in the Department of Corrections on June 6, 2009. Officials say he passed away at 10:32 p.m. on Monday at the Western Missouri Correctional Center.
Troya, 58, was serving a ten-year sentence as a chronic DWI offender out of Clay County. He entered the department on December 20, 2011. Troya died at 6:45 p.m. on Monday at the infirmary at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
Communications Director David Owen of the Missouri Department of Corrections says you can’t read a lot into what appears to be an unusually high number of inmate deaths lately.
“You really have to look at the case-by-case situation of the offenders that have passed away,” Owen says. “It really has to do with their medical condition, how they came into the institution, how long they’ve been incarcerated, and what kind of medical conditions they had.”
“Typically all offender records or conditions are closed pursuant to state statutes.”
Owen says if there is an incident, or an unexpected death, the department will conduct an autopsy. If the department suspects foul play was involved, an investigation will be started by the departments Inspector General’s Office. Those investigations are also closed.
“Once they’re completed we try to give that to the county prosecutor’s office, and they move forward with charges if they would like to,” Owen said.
At the Crossroads Correctional Center, also in Cameron, one inmate death is being investigated as a homicide. Larry Miller was pronounced dead at age 33 on June 9 at 6:33am. Dekalb County Coroner Heath Turner tells us Miller’s death is suspicious.
“It’s being investigated as a homicide until we prove otherwise,” Turner said in an interview. “We’re waiting for a formal autopsy report from the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office, which conducted the autopsy.”
We received a comment on our original story at St Joseph Post from someone self-identified as “Clergy.”
“I have first hand knowledge of this individual and the circumstances resulting in his death,” according to the author of the comment. “He was murdered! It was a brutal attack.”
Mr Turner says he does not believe the recent string of inmate deaths are related. He says the final autopsy report typically takes between a month and three months to complete, depending on the caseload in Jackson County.