Updated at 4:54 p.m.
A 74-year-old Bennington man serving up to life in prison has died at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, according to Vermont State Police.
Department of Corrections staff found Charles Mould unresponsive in his cell at about 3:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to a state police news release. Emergency medical services were called to the facility.
Mould was pronounced dead at the facility at 3:38 a.m., the release stated.
Mould is the eighth incarcerated person to die this year in the state’s corrections system — well ahead of the state’s average annual death rate — and the sixth at Springfield.
He had been held in the prison infirmary at the time of his death, the release stated, and a preliminary investigation does not indicate his death is suspicious.
Rachel Feldman, a corrections department spokesperson, said Wednesday she could not disclose why Mould was in the prison’s infirmary or discuss any conditions he may have had, citing medical privacy concerns.
An autopsy will take place at the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington to find out the cause and manner of Mould’s death.
Mould had been incarcerated since 2008, serving a 40 years-to-life sentence. His conviction included repeated aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault on a child under 10 years old and lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, according to the release from state police.
From 2017 through 2021, a total of 15 people — for an average of three per year — died in Vermont’s prisons, according to the corrections department, including 12 at the Springfield prison.
The state police are conducting the investigation into Mould’s death while the corrections department will carry out internal administrative and medical reviews.
Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio, whose department oversees the state’s Prisoners’ Rights Office, said Wednesday he had been notified by corrections officials about Mould’s death. He said he was told that a preliminary investigation showed that the death was a result of natural causes.
Valerio said the Prisoners’ Rights Office will be conducting its own investigation into the death.