A 73-year-old man incarcerated by the state of Vermont died on Monday while receiving palliative care at a hospice facility in New Hampshire, according to the Vermont Department of Corrections.
Roy Patten, of Lebanon, New Hampshire, had been taken April 9 from Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield to the Springfield Hospital emergency department “after exhibiting signs of medical distress,” the corrections department said in a press release Wednesday evening.
He was subsequently transferred to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon and then to its Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care, according to the release.
Patten’s death does not appear suspicious, corrections officials wrote. A standard investigation into his death is ongoing.
Since 2014, he had been serving a sentence of 13 years to life for aggravated sexual assault, according to the release.
