Self-inflicted wounds cited in death of 40-year-old inmate

A Cummins Unit inmate died Wednesday after workers found him in his cell with self-inflicted wounds early Tuesday, an Arkansas Department of Correction official said.

Staff members at the Cummins Unit in Grady found Troy Allen Crook, 40, about 1 a.m. Tuesday, department spokesman Solomon Graves said. Crook was taken first to the prison’s infirmary and then to a hospital, where he died about 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Graves said Crook resided in a single-person cell and said the Arkansas State Police would be conducting an investigation into the man’s death alongside the department’s internal investigation.

Crook has been incarcerated since Oct. 6, 2009, according to the department’s records. He was sentenced to 100 years in prison for the slayings of Vilonia cousins Bobby Brock, 45, and Lonnie Brock, 62, in Faulkner County, according to previous reports.

The Brock cousins were beaten and then shot, according to previous reports.

Crook and a second man, Ronald Dean Charles, pleaded guilty to what investigators at the time called an armed robbery, according to court documents.

Cody Hiland, who was the prosecuting attorney for Faulkner County at the time of the slayings, said in 2011 that the two men were looking for money to buy crack cocaine when they killed the Brock cousins.

Crook was committed to a psychiatric facility at least nine times by the age of 17, when he was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He was convicted of manslaughter at the age of 10 after accidentally shooting a childhood friend, according to court records.