Suspect in prison death already behind bars
The suspect in the strangulation of a Greene Correctional Facility inmate last fall is someone who already is incarcerated, Greene County District Attorney Joseph Stanzione said Tuesday.
Delmus R. Tanner Jr., 38, died on Nov. 13, 2018, due to “strangulation by another” person at the medium-security state prison, according a death certificate provided to the Freeman by Tanner’s ex-wife, Ashley Farrell of Orleans County.
Farrell said Tanner was being held in solitary confinement at the time of his death, but that has not been confirmed by state corrections officials.
Stanzione said the case will be presented to a Greene County grand jury within four weeks. Referring to the suspect, the prosecutor said there is “no urgency since he’s incarcerated.”
Stanzione did not identify the suspect.
Tanner’s death is one of two at the Greene Correctional Facility in Coxsackie that’s under investigation.
Inmate Anthony Myrie, 24, died Feb. 11 after what the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision called “an incident involving several incarcerated individuals.” On Monday, a department spokesman said Myrie died of apparent “sudden cardiac arrest” several hours after the incident.
In the Myrie case, Stanzione said he is awaiting an autopsy report from the Albany County Coroner’s Office before determining how to proceed.
A spokeswoman for that office said Tuesday that autopsy results are not provided to the media. She said relatives are notified of the results.
State police have declined to provide any additional information about what they have described as an “open investigation” in the Tanner case.
Of Myrie’s death, Senior Investigator Bill Fitzmaurice said only that it’s being investigated.
Tanner had served two years of a five-year sentence for criminal sale of a controlled substance.
Myrie was jailed on Nov. 15, 2018, and was serving a seven-year sentence for criminal sale of a controlled substance.