inmate from the Western Correctional Institution in Allegany County who was
found motionless in his cell April 30, a prison spokesman said yesterday.
Ifeanyi A. Iko, an immigrant from Nigeria, was discovered at 4:30 p.m. by a
corrections officer, and prison employees performed cardiopulmonary
resuscitation on him until paramedics arrived and took him to Sacred Heart
Hospital in Cumberland, said Mark Vernarelli, spokesman for the Department of
Public Safety and Correctional Services. Iko was taken from the prison at 4:45
p.m. and died 25 minutes later at the hospital, he said.
A spokesman for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which
oversees the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said officials were
awaiting autopsy results.
But Iko’s death has triggered an investigation by the department’s internal
investigative unit, Vernarelli said. “The state police, who are commonly
called in to assist in prisoner-death cases, were not requested to help in
this case,” he said.
Iko’s death surprised and outraged members of his family — also Nigerian
immigrants — many of whom live in Maryland and Northern Virginia. On the day
Iko died, prison officials made several attempts to notify family members, but
were unsuccessful, Vernarelli said.
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Family members didn’t learn of Iko’s death until nearly two weeks later,
when a reporter called a sister and a sister-in-law for information about him.
“There are a great many questions that have not been answered at this
point,” said attorney Bruce L. Marcus, who was retained by Iko’s younger
brother, Rex, who lives in Houston.
“Our client is looking for an explanation on how this unfortunate incident
occurred, and to the extent that there are persons who are responsible for the
death of Mr. Iko, our client is hopeful that they will be held legally
accountable,” Marcus said. “At this point, the institution has not provided
our client with any substantive evidence, leaving unanswered a myriad of
questions,” Marcus said.
Rex and sister Ada Iko, who lives in Maryland, expressed concern that foul
play was involved in their brother’s death.
“I know he wanted to get out of that facility because he didn’t feel safe
there,” said Ada Iko.
Iko was held in a special housing area of the prison where he was checked
by guards every 15 minutes, Vernarelli said. State law does not permit him to
disclose an inmate’s medical information or housing details at the prison, he
said.
Vernarelli said the prison agency was awaiting the medical examiner’s
findings, which would likely yield a cause and manner of death. No one in the
prison — inmate or prison employee — has been singled out as a possible
suspect or disciplined in connection with Iko’s death, Vernarelli said. He
said the internal investigation was in the “early stages.”
“We have no reason to believe there’s any foul play involved,” Vernarelli
said. “It’s a mystery at this point why he died. Our staff who were working
the evening this happened were very upset about it.”
WCI is a medium-security state prison that opened in 1996 in Cresaptown. It
houses about 1,600 inmates, who have an average sentence length of 266 months,
excluding those serving life sentences, according to the prison’s Web page.
Iko first entered the state prison system in 1991 after he was given a
three-year sentence in Prince George’s County for a drug manufacturing charge,
according to Vernarelli and court records.
While housed at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Somerset County,
Iko received at least another 20-year sentence for biting a corrections
officer and stabbing him with a 56-inch-long “shank” in a 1992 incident,
according to Vernarelli and court records. The officer survived, he said.
Since entering prison, Iko has been housed in several institutions across
the state before ending up at WCI in January, Vernarelli said.
Relatives said Iko came to the United States from Nigeria in 1981, and
settled first in Hyattsville with family. He attended Southeastern University
in Washington, D.C., but never graduated, they said. But he met his former
wife, Loreen Jones, at the school, and he has two teen-age children with her.
They were living together at a house in Silver Spring when he was
incarcerated, Jones said.
“It was such a minor drug charge, that’s what makes it so sad,” Jones
recalled yesterday. “It’s unfortunate that the guard incident happened.” She
said Iko characterized that incident as self-defense and had since expressed
concerns for his safety in the prisons.
Jones indicated that she and her children have kept in loose contact with
Iko over the years, but she was surprised that she and others didn’t learn of
his death sooner.
Vernarelli said that Iko’s next-of-kin contact information was minimal and
incorrect and that prison officials turned to the visitor log to find and
contact relatives who visited him. The prison chaplain found a brother who
lives in Northern Virginia, but when he called the house, a woman on the phone
refused to take a message, he said.
Iko’s family members finally were told of Iko’s death when a reporter
contacted relatives last Thursday evening.
The next day, a sister called the prison to confirm Iko’s death, Vernarelli
said.
Vernarelli said prison officials will typically rely on state police
agencies or local law enforcement to make family notification when a prisoner
dies, but that request wasn’t made in Iko’s death.
Sun staff researchers Jean Packard and Sarah Gehring contributed to this
article.