Benton County Man Found Strangled in Cell

12-8-2012 Arkansas:

Matthew Scheile, 22, was found strangled in his cell at 1 a.m. Saturday morning in the Cummins Unit in Grady, Ar., the Department of Corrections said.

Scheile was serving a 48-month prison term for failure to register as a sex offender in Benton County. Corrections department spokesman Shea Wilson said Scheile, who was from West Fork and lived previously in Rogers, was originally convicted of sexual indecency with a child in 2010 in Cleburne County and sentenced to five years’ probation.

He was sentenced June 13, 2012 and was eligible for parole on March 15, 2013. Wilson said Scheile was Level 3 sex offender, which means police consider him a high risk to offend again.

Scheile’s cellmate, Robert Holland, 44, told prison officers that he strangled Scheile with a bed sheet Friday night and covered Scheile with a sheet to cover the crime, corrections spokesman Shea Wilson said. Holland is serving a life sentence for capital murder for shooting his parents in 1991 in El Dorado. ..Source.. by 5NewsOnline

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Prison inmate at Cummins reportedly strangled by cell mate

12-10-2012:

The Arkansas State Police are continuing their investigation into the death of an inmate at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction who was allegedly strangled by his cell mate.

Matthew Scheile, 22, was found covered with a sheet in his bunk after his cell mate Robert Holland, 44, stopped a guard making rounds at 1 a.m. Saturday, department spokeswoman Shea Wilson said.

Holland reportedly told the guard he had strangled Scheile with the sheet at about 11 p.m. Friday, then covered up Scheile to conceal the incident.

Wilson said Holland was serving life without parole after being convicted of capital murder in Union County and came to the ADC on Nov. 12, 1991.

Scheile was serving a 48 month sentence from Benton County for failure to register as a sex offender. He was assigned to the ADC on June 22, and would have been eligible to apply for parole on March 15, 2013.

When the state police investigation is completed, it will be turned over to 11th Judicial District-West Prosecuting Attorney S. Kyle Hunter, who is prosecutor for Jefferson and Lincoln counties. ..Source.. by Ray King

Sex offender found dead in apparent homicide in Maryland prison

6-27-2012 Maryland:

A sex offender was found dead early Wednesday morning in his prison cell in Anne Arundel County, and police said that his death appears to have been a homicide.

The victim, 21-year-old Robert J. Tunnell, was serving a six-year sentence. Tunnell's cellmate has been identified as the suspect, and charges are pending against him, according to Maryland State Police.

According to a preliminary investigation, about 2 a.m., a correctional officer making routine rounds at the Jessup Correctional Institution arrived at the cell occupied by Tunnell and the suspect. The suspect made statements that caused the officer to initiate an emergency response by staff and enter the cell. Tunnell was found unresponsive and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Investigators found signs that Tunnell had sustained trauma, and an item that appeared to be a shoe string was found around his neck, police said. Tunnell's body was taken to a medical examiner's office for an autopsy. ..Source.. by Naomi Jagoda

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Harford County Sex Offender Killed in State Prison

Police believe Robert Joseph Tunnell's cellmate at Jessup Correctional Institution allegedly killed him.

A Harford County man serving a six-year sentence for a sex offense was found dead in his cell at the Jessup Correctional Institution Wednesday, authorities said. Police believe his cellmate allegedly killed.

Robert Joseph Tunnell, 21, formerly of Edgewood and Baltimore, was found dead in his cell with signs of trauma to his body and a string around his neck, police said.

While there is a known suspect in the case, charges are pending and police have not released the suspect's name.

Around 2 a.m. Wednesday, a correctional officer making routine rounds arrived at Tunnell's cell and Tunnell's cellmate allegedly said something to the officer that prompted an emergency response from staff, according to a release from Maryland State Police. It was unclear Thursday what the nature of those statements was.

Tunnell wasn't responding when staff reached him and medical personnel were called. Medics pronounced Tunnell dead at the scene, the news release states.

Tunnell's body showed signs of trauma and investigators found what looked like a shoe string around his neck, according to state police.

The victim's body was taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore for an autopsy to determine the official cause of death.

"It is a murder and there is a suspect who has been identified," state police spokesman Greg Shipley said Thursday.

Charges are pending against Tunnell's cellmate. In the mean time, the suspect remains in custody of the Maryland Division of Correction, according to state police.

The two men were being held in a transitional housing area usually designated for inmates brought in from other institutions or being moved for some reason.

"Tunnell was apparently serving a sentence at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset," Shipley said, "I don't know why he was brought to JCI."

According to court records, Tunnell had a violation of probation hearing in Harford County the day before he was killed.

He was serving a six-year sentence after entering an Alford Plea on an attempted second-degree sex offense charge on March 12. An Alford Plea means the defendent acknowledges the state has enough evidence to convict, but maintains his innocence. It qualifies as a finding of guilt.

The underlying charges involved inappropriate contact with a boy, age 14, when Tunnell was 19 years old, according to court documents. ..Source.. by Kirsten Dize

Guards Can't Toss Suit Over Murdered Inmate

9-13-2011 Texas:

HOUSTON (CN) - Four prison employees still face claims that they let an inmate strangle his cellmate and kick him to death with boots, a federal judge ruled.

Michael Dewayne Walker was a prisoner at a Texas state prison in Midway, serving a 21-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a child. Officials at the Ferguson Unit assigned the 20-year-old Walker to bunk with Wilbert "Peanut" Hamilton, who was serving time for homicide, arson and assault.

On July 13, 2006, just six months into Walker's sentence, Hamilton strangled Walker and kicked him with a pair of black brogans issued to him for use in the prison work area. After Hamilton pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, the courts tacked another seven years to his prison sentence.

Walker was not the first cellmate that Hamilton had assaulted. Steven Ware nearly died when Hamilton went after him in a similar attack five years earlier.

Walker's parents, Mary Walker and Michael Spencer, filed a wrongful-death complaint in the Southern District of Texas. The original complaint lists eight claims for relief, which include violations of Walker's Fourth, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights.

"It is well known to all defendants - and frankly the general public - that sex offenders are routinely targeted by the general population inmates and singled out for harassment, intimidation, abuse, assault, and/or injury," the complaint states. Walker's parents also say Hamilton should not have had his boots in the cell.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt noted this week that the four remaining defendants - Ferguson Unit Warden Michael Upshaw, prison guard Matthew Bazan III, prison guard Jason Pfleiderer, and prison guard Leonard Laskowski - were each named for the first time in an amended complaint.

On Wednesday, Hoyt dismissed their second motion for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The officials had claimed that "the law was not clearly established that sex offenders such as Walker had to be segregated from the prison population, nor that offenders were prohibited from having boots in the housing area," according to the eight-page order.

There are "genuine issues of material fact remain disputed regarding whether the defendants violated Walker's Eighth Amendment rights," Hoyt said, noting that Walker's parents have claimed that "Hamilton's propensity for violence was well known within the prison, and that his attack on Walker was audible and occurred over several hours."

Walker's parents "also claim that Warden Upshaw failed to properly train his staff, as evidenced by the fact that they put him into Hamilton's cell, despite the fact that Hamilton was outspokenly threatening to any potential cell mate."

"In light of Hamilton's well-documented history of violence, mental instability and routine need for solitary confinement, the conflicting accounts of the length and volume of the fatal beating, the defendants' qualified immunity defense fails," Hoyt wrote. ..Source.. by BONNIE BARRON

CO- Was inmate death suicide or murder?

7-31-2009 Colorado:

In 2005, after being charged with sexual assault on a child and awaiting trial at the Jefferson County Detention Facility, Anthony Sims was so worried about his safety in prison that he asked, and was granted, to be housed in protective custody.

What Sims did not know, according to a lawsuit filed this week in the United States District Court of Colorado, was that nearby, just beyond a shared shower with faulty locks, a violent white supremacist Shawn Shields was being held. Shields had been transferred from the “Supermax” prison and was awaiting charges for assault on a cellmate.

Kathie Sims, Anthony’s mother, claims in the civil suit that because of the access provided by the broken shower locks, Shields was able to enter Sims’ cell and strangle him with a tube sock.

Sims’ death had been ruled a suicide by the Jefferson County Coroner and indeed Kathie was told there was nothing to suggest his death was a homicide. Yet as the Complaint points out, Sims had been badly beaten and his head was in a pool of blood.

Nearly 3 years after her son’s death, Kathie was contacted by an FBI agent whose “ investigation had determined that Anthony had not committed suicide, but had been murdered by a fellow inmate.”

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Estate of Anthony Sims, is directed against the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners and sheriffs for failing to protect Sims while he was in their protective custody. The attorney for the plaintiff, David Lane, has also been in the news lately as the defense attorney for controversial professor Ward Churchill. ..Source.. by Glorianne Scott

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Jeffco DA probing inmate's '05 death

7-31-2009 Colorado:

The Jefferson County district attorney is investigating the death four years ago of a child-sexual-assault suspect in the county jail — a death initially ruled a suicide.

The investigation was prompted by a statement made by a prison inmate, who told the FBI that he killed Anthony Sims after manipulating a shared door between their cells that was supposed to be locked.

On Nov. 1, 2005, 20-year-old Sims was found with a tube sock tied around his neck, his body slumped face down over his cell bed with his legs on the floor.

The right side of his face was bruised and swollen.

After an investigation by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, the county coroner ruled Sims' death a suicide.

Then, in 2008, inmate Shawn Shields, 36, who is serving time in state prison on a variety of felony offenses until October 2028, told an FBI agent that he had killed Sims, after figuring out how to open a locked door between their cells.

Shields has yet to serve a pending 10-year federal sentence for beating another inmate on May 23, 2005, while in a holding cell at the U.S. District Court in Denver. The victim was beaten because he was a witness testifying against another inmate in a federal court case, records show.

An FBI agent notified Sims' mother, Kathie, of Shields' statement. On Wednesday, she filed suit against the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Ted Mink and an unnamed deputy.

The lawsuit says Jefferson County failed to protect Sims from Shields, an inmate with a record of violence on other prisoners, described as a high-level member of a white supremacist prison gang.

Jefferson County sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Kelley and County Attorney Writer Mott said Thursday that Shields' claims were investigated.

"We don't believe the story and don't believe the inmate was killed at the hands of another inmate at our facility," Kelley said. "The doors were tested, and we could not replicate or duplicate what this inmate said occurred."

Shields is not charged with homicide. Sims' death remains classified as a suicide in Jefferson County.

But while the Sheriff's Office has discounted Shields' claims, there is an open investigation into Sims' death by the district attorney.

Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the district attorney, acknowledged the probe but said she could not elaborate.

David Lane, attorney for Kathie Sims, said more investigation is clearly needed.

"He beat himself to a pulp before he tied a sock around his neck and strangled himself to death? It's ridiculous," Lane said.

The lawsuit says Shields and other inmates knew how to manipulate the doors in the shared shower between the administrative segregation unit, where Shields was housed, and the protective-custody unit, where Sims was held. ..Source.. by Felisa Cardona