Questions about whether inmates were getting their prescriptions here at the jail go back to at least 2018. There are also reports of medications disappearing.

Search for an escaped inmate

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the death of an inmate at the Columbia County Jail, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. An 18th Florida inmate has died from complications of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, the state Department of Corrections reported on Wednesday. The inmate, whose name was not disclosed by the department, is the third prisoner to die from COVID-19 in less than a week. The Department of Health reported that the 18 inmates have died while incarcerated at Sumter Correctional Institution, Union Correctional Institution, South Florida Reception Center, Liberty Correctional Institution, Dade Correctional Institution, Everglades Correctional Institution, Blackwater River Correctional Facility and South Bay Correctional Facility. South Florida Reception Center, a prison in Doral with 31 inmate cases, is the latest facility to report an outbreak. It has recorded 26 new inmate cases and one inmate death in the past week.

Both were serving life sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14. “We can’t comment on an active investigation,” Dana Simas, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email. Watson wrote that six days after he arrived at the prison, a child molester moved into the pod. Watson said he returned to his housing pod. “Being a lifer, I’m in a unique position where I sometimes have access to these people and I have so little to lose,” Watson wrote.