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State Releases Report On Inmate's Suicide

State officials say one and possibly two prison guards falsified an electronic log documenting checks on a death row inmate who committed suicide days before his scheduled execution. The guards were placed on paid administrative leave. Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler reports.

The investigation from a team at the prisons department says records on a computerized log book may have been falsified on August 4, the night Billy Slagle killed himself on death row in the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. Slagle hanged himself three days before his scheduled execution. The report says one guard didn’t make the rounds every half hour as he was supposed to, and that he and another guard may have changed the records to show he did. The guards are on paid leave now and will not face charges from the Highway Patrol, but the report says they could be disciplined or fired. The report says nearly three quarters of the officers on duty that night were relief officers, who don’t have the same training that regular duty officers do. It also suggests the lighting at night is too low to monitor inmates, and notes that there are problems with inmates putting up paper and other items to block windows.

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.
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