KEY POINTS

  • James Allen Brown became the 16th inmate to die inside the Mississippi State Penitentiary
  • Sunflower County Coroner said no foul play was involved in the death of Brown
  • The 54-year-old Brown was sentenced in 1993 for murder and residential robbery

Mississippi's penal system continues to slump and struggle as the state's penitentiary claimed its 16th victim this week.

54-year-old James Allen Brown died late Monday at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.

Brown, who was sentenced in 1993, was serving a life sentence for murder and residential robbery, said WLOX.

According to a senior US official, more than 100 Islamic State group prisoners have already broken out during the chaos of sparked by Turkey's invasion which has been accompanied by the withdrawal of US troops
According to a senior US official, more than 100 Islamic State group prisoners have already broken out during the chaos of sparked by Turkey's invasion which has been accompanied by the withdrawal of US troops AFP / FADEL SENNA

Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton told the outlet that no foul play was involved in the death of Brown, adding that the prisoner “was in the inpatient department and had been receiving treatment for a terminal illness.”

Brown's cause of death is still unknown, but Burton is scheduled to perform an autopsy to determine how he died.

Parchman is notoriously known to be a violent prison. Most of its victims had died due to riots, suicides and murder.

In January, 35-year-old Timothy Hudspeth and 36-year-old James Talley died after they were beaten to death while fighting other inmates.

Burton said that Hudspeth and Talley died due to “blunt force beating injuries.”

Prior to their deaths, Parchman also lost three inmates from December 29 to January. Two more inmates were killed in separate prisons, while two more escaped but was later captured.

Brown's death on the other hand came in less than a week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division would be spearheading an investigation on the conditions of the state's four prisons.

The investigation will delve on Parchman, as well as conditions at the South Mississippi Correctional Institution, the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility.

This came after 11 prisoner advocacy groups wrote a 23-page letter to the DOJ requesting an official probe, said ABC News.

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