Updated at 5:59 p.m.
Vermont State Police are investigating the death of an incarcerated man who died at Springfield Hospital on Monday.
David R. Goldstein, 56, of Barre City is the fifth person to die in custody so far this year and the third who has died while being held at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
Police were notified around 5:20 p.m. Monday of Goldstein’s death at the hospital. Earlier in the day, according to the release, Goldstein had been taken by ambulance from the correctional facility to the hospital for “a medical event.”
Police said they are awaiting an autopsy that will take place at the Vermont Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Burlington to confirm the cause and manner of death.
Goldstein was serving a sentence for convictions on charges including identity theft and possession of child sex abuse materials, according to Rachel Feldman, a corrections department spokesperson.
Feldman said Goldstein had served the minimum of his sentence, but had not reached the maximum. He remained in prison past his minimum, Feldman said, “for lack of proper housing.”
Additional details on Goldstein’s sentence were not immediately available Tuesday.
Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio, whose department oversees the state’s Prisoners’ Rights Office, said he learned of Goldstein’s death Monday night from the corrections department.
“This was some sort of medical event and it was unexpected,” Valerio said. “We are unaware of any chronic diseases, cancer or the like, that would have hastened” Goldstein’s death.
Valerio said he doesn’t yet know many other details, but his office has launched an investigation as it had done in past deaths of incarcerated individuals. His office and the corrections department have formed a group looking into all the deaths so far this year in the state’s prison system.
“We have a joint group that is working to try to come up with any common threads of why these deaths are occurring,” he said. “The commissioner and I have agreed to effectively open our investigations to each other and see what’s going on.”
Late last month, state police reported that Matthew Castellini, 35, had died of a suspected suicide at the Springfield prison while incarcerated.
Raymond Gadreault, 73, died at the Springfield prison in February, with state police reporting he died from natural causes.
Earlier in April, Dustin Dunkling, 29, of St. Albans, died by an apparent suicide at the St. Johnsbury prison, state police reported at the time.
Michael Cornell, 34, died on New Year’s Day at the Newport prison from an accidental drug overdose, according to his death certificate.
