Another prisoner was found dead Wednesday at a Mississippi maximum-security prison where riots and violence have claimed the lives of at least seven other inmates in recent weeks.
According to the Mississippi Department of Corrections, guards found 49-year-old Thomas Lee hanging in his cell Wednesday morning at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, which is about 90 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
Prison officials said Lee was housed in an area of the prison where the most violent inmates are held.
He was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2014 of killing a police captain, who was run over by a car, according to records.
Although the latest case appears to be a suicide, "the official cause and manner of death is pending investigation," said Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton.
Just a few days before Lee's death, two other Parchman inmates were reportedly beaten to death in separate incidents, according to officials.
Those slayings appeared to be “an isolated incident — not a continuation of the recent retaliatory killings,” prison officials said in a statement Tuesday.
A statewide prison lockdown was ordered Dec. 29 after a brawl at South Mississippi Correctional Institution left one inmate dead and two others injured.
By Jan. 3, four additional inmates had been killed and several others injured as outbreaks of violence continued at the Parchman facility, according to reports.
FOX13 News in Memphis reported the riots may have started as a turf war between factions of the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples, two notorious street gangs.
There were also two other deaths unrelated to the violence, according to prison officials. In one of those cases, an inmate reportedly died of natural causes, and another was found hanging in his cell on or about Jan. 18, according to Sunflower County Coroner Heather Burton.
The names of the slaying victims have not been released.
Federal lawsuit filed
Early last week, more than two dozen inmates at Parchman filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Mississippi, claiming the prison was dangerously understaffed and plagued by violence.
The lawsuit, filed the same day Mississippi inaugurated a new Republican governor, Tate Reeves, also alleges Parchman forces inmates to live in unsanitary conditions.
The inmates claim the facility is vexed by rats, flooding, sewage and black mold, and that their jail cells go without running water and electricity for days.
Some of the plaintiffs' attorneys are with a New York-based law firm whose clients include Jay-Z, who sent a letter to then-Gov. Phil Bryant and Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall, saying they intend to sue the state over inmates being “forced to live in squalor.”
An investigation is continuing.
Federal authorities in Mississippi said they were aware of problems in the prisons and said people should report possible civil rights violations or criminal activity. They did not say how extensive a federal investigation might be.
“When we compile details and feel confident that information is accurate, we will quickly share more,” MDOC said in a statement.
— Information from The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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