A Barre man lodged in an out-of-state prison has died, according to the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Sean Ousterhout, 43, was found unresponsive in his cell early Saturday morning at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Tutwiler, Mississippi. Prison staff attempted life-saving measures but were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead roughly half an hour later, the department said in a press release Sunday night.
Osterhout had been about five years into a 14- to 30-year sentence on charges of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, according to the department, and had been in Mississippi since 2019.
Vermont contracts with the private prison corporation CoreCivic to house some incarcerated people at the Mississippi facility. As of last week, 125 people incarcerated by the Vermont Department of Corrections were held out of state, according to a department census.
The department’s Corrections Investigative Unit will conduct an investigation, as is standard procedure, the department said in the press release.
