Updated at 5:32 p.m.
A 34-year-old man incarcerated at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield died early Tuesday morning, according to Vermont State Police.
Alexander Kelley of Putney was found unresponsive in his cell around 1:08 a.m. Tuesday by prison staff during a routine check, according to a state police press release issued Tuesday morning.
Prison staff called first responders to the scene. Despite lifesaving efforts, Kelley was pronounced dead at 1:42 a.m., police wrote.
Vermont State Police were notified, per standard procedure, and are conducting an investigation into Kelley’s death. An autopsy will be performed at the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office to determine his cause and manner of death.
“Preliminary information obtained by VSP indicates Kelley’s health was being monitored by prison staff, and he was alone in a cell,” state police wrote in the release.
The corrections department, in its own press release later Tuesday, said Kelley’s death “is not considered suspicious at this time.”
Asked why his health was being monitored by prison staff, Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the corrections department, replied Tuesday that she could not divulge specifics due to federal health privacy laws.
Kelley had been in custody since March 1 as a fugitive from justice, police said. He was being held in a post-intake area separate from the general population, which is standard protocol for new inmates.
Kelley was wanted in New Hampshire on a felony charge of possession of fentanyl stemming from an incident on Sept. 12, 2022, in Dublin, New Hampshire, according to court records.
In 2022, a total of nine people died in corrections custody, including six at the Springfield prison. Six of those deaths were due to natural causes, according to their death certificates. Two died by suicide and one of a drug overdose, the death certificates showed.
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. Most of them — 12 — died at the Springfield prison.
So far this year, five people, including Kelley, have died in corrections custody, including one of suspected suicide and another last week following an assault in December by another incarcerated person.
Vermont Public Defender Matthew Valerio, whose department oversees the state’s Prisoners’ Rights Office, said Tuesday afternoon that he was still gathering details on Kelley’s death after getting notified of it early in the morning.
He said the corrections department had indicated it “might be some sort of medical event” and that he has “some information I have to confirm.”
The matter has been referred to the Prisoners’ Rights Office to conduct a review, Valerio said.