Father seeks information months after son’s prison death
An Oklahoma man is still seeking answers from the state nearly five months after his son died in prison.
Barry Haynes said he received an autopsy report Tuesday in the Dec. 10 death of his son, Tycen Drew Ellett, 30, at Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
Ellett’s body was found by prison staff. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death as a suicide and noted that “methamphetamine toxicity” was a contributing factor in his death.
Haynes said Prozac and other medications were found in his system, but said Ellett wasn’t being prescribed any medications and “certainly not methamphetamine.”
“That obviously was smuggled into the facility somehow,” he said. “We’re going to try to get some answers from the state.”
Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Matt Elliott said prisons in Oklahoma are not unique in terms of contraband reaching prisoners.
“Every prison in the country struggles with contraband smuggled in on a daily basis, and we’re no exception to that problem we face along with everybody else,” he said. “We have a number of steps that we take to try to limit that.”
Although he couldn’t comment on the medications in Ellett’s system, Elliott said the Department of Corrections does have medical staff that prescribes medications for prisoners.
Elliott said there were seven inmate suicides at state prisons in 2017, including Ellett’s death, and two inmate suicides so far in 2018.
The prevention of suicides at state prisons is considered a critical issue, Oklahoma Department of Corrections officials note in a policy directive, and each facility is required to develop a suicide prevention plan annually.