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Three incarcerated individuals died over the weekend in state custody: Two at William Donaldson Correctional Facility and another at Ventress Correctional Facility in Barbour County, according to statements from the Alabama Department of Corrections obtained by APR.
The three incarcerated men are the seventh, eighth, and ninth fatalities in state custody confirmed by the ADOC this month. Of the nine, at least six have been confirmed dead in both Donaldson and Limestone Correctional Facilities, each accounting for three deaths.
Trenton Jamario White, a 30-year-old, and Michael Theodore Medders, a 61-year-old, were both incarcerated at Donaldson Correctional Facility, with Douglas Grubis, a 43-year-old, imprisoned at Ventress Correctional facility, with each being pronounced dead between Friday and Saturday of last week, according to the statement from ADOC.
White was found unresponsive in his cell by correctional staff sometime on Friday, with medical staff following immediately after his discovery to conduct an assessment of his condition, the spokesperson said. Upon examination, White was pronounced deceased.
Court records indicated he was originally from Gadsden.
That same day in Barbour County, Grubis was also found unresponsive in a cell at Ventress Correctional Facility and rushed to the health care unit within the prison, where medical staff attempted life-saving measures.
“Unfortunately, medical staff was unable to revive him, and he was pronounced deceased,” an ADOC spokesperson said in a statement.
Grubis had been denied parole in May of 2021, with roughly a decade remaining on his sentence at the time of his death.
The following day, Medders was found, like the other men, unresponsive in his cell by correctional staff at Donaldson Correctional Facility. Life-saving measures were attempted on Medders while correctional staff was in his cell, and later in the Health Care unit, but all proved unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead later that same day.
Like White, Medders was also from Gadsden.
As with all cases of death within state prisons, the Law Enforcement Services Division of the ADOC is investigating the circumstances surrounding each death.
