New York State Police are investigating the death of an inmate at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone as a homicide. According to officials, police responded to the facility around 9:10 p.m. on Thursday for reports of a suspicious death of an inmate.An initial investigation found that corrections officers were doing their rounds around 8 p.m. when they found blood in a cell and an inmate, 35-year-old Antawon R. Johnson, on the floor. Police said Johnson and his cellmate, 28-year-old Arkies Sommerville, got into a physical altercation. Johnson was found with a shoelace and a bed sheet around his neck. He was unconscious and not breathing. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy done Saturday determined his cause of death to be strangulation and the manner of death was a homicide. The investigation is ongoing.
New York State Police are investigating the death of an inmate at the Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone as a homicide.
According to officials, police responded to the facility around 9:10 p.m. on Thursday for reports of a suspicious death of an inmate.
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An initial investigation found that corrections officers were doing their rounds around 8 p.m. when they found blood in a cell and an inmate, 35-year-old Antawon R. Johnson, on the floor.
Police said Johnson and his cellmate, 28-year-old Arkies Sommerville, got into a physical altercation. Johnson was found with a shoelace and a bed sheet around his neck. He was unconscious and not breathing. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy done Saturday determined his cause of death to be strangulation and the manner of death was a homicide.
The investigation is ongoing.
