Updated at 5:15 p.m.
Vermont State Police Wednesday are investigating another death of a person incarcerated at the Springfield prison, the second death reported at the facility in the span of eight days.
Since January 2022, 10 people who have been in custody at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield have died, according to state police and corrections department reports.
Romeo Reome III, 53, of Brattleboro was found unresponsive in his cell after prison staff were alerted by Reome’s cellmate at 2:39 a.m., according to a press release issued Wednesday afternoon by Vermont State Police.
Prison staff provided emergency aid and called first responders, but lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful and Reome was pronounced dead at 3:19 a.m. Wednesday, according to state police.
Per standard procedure, the release stated, corrections department officials notified Vermont State Police of Reome’s death at 3:43 a.m. and a detective responded to the Springfield prison to investigate.
“Preliminary information obtained by VSP indicates Reome had numerous health problems and was treated early Tuesday morning at Springfield Hospital before being returned to the prison,” according to a later state police press release.
An autopsy will take place at the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington to determine the cause and manner of death.
Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the corrections department, said Wednesday that federal health privacy laws prevented her from disclosing specific medical information about Reome.
Nicholas Deml, corrections commissioner, said Wednesday that speaking generally, it is the health care provider who makes the decision about whether a person in custody should be admitted to a medical facility, and not the corrections department.
“All medical decisions, or decisions about whether somebody were to leave a hospital or be put in an infirmary or anything like that, are medical decisions that either would be made by the hospital or, if they’re at a facility, our medical provider,” Deml said. “Those decisions are not made by DOC.”
As to the high number of deaths of Springfield in recent months, Deml termed it “troubling” and a matter that the corrections department is reviewing. He added that the facility houses the oldest and sickest of the incarcerated population in Vermont.
“Just as a numbers matter, they are going to have a higher percentage of those adverse outcomes also,” he said of those held at the Springfield prison. “That doesn’t take away from the fact this is really troubling and something that we really need to understand so we can prevent people from having these outcomes.”
Reome had been in custody since Aug. 15, 2022, serving a sentence of six to eight years for aggravated assault.
So far this year, six people, including Reome, have died in corrections custody, including one suspected death by suicide.
In 2022, a total of nine people died in corrections custody, including six at the Springfield prison. Six of those nine deaths were due to natural causes, according to the 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, or 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.
Vermont Defender General Matthew Valerio, whose department includes the state’s Prisoners’ Rights Office, said Wednesday that other than being notified of the most recent death, he was still gathering information and will be conducting a review.
“In a lot of these, they say there is no apparent issue why this would happen, but we’ll find out one way or another,” he added.
Clarification: Vermont State Police misstated the day Reome was treated at Springfield Hospital.