JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - An inmate died Tuesday in the hospital of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where he had been living since August with a terminal illness, the state Department of Corrections said in a news release.
Timmy Terrell Harden, 47, was serving a 20-year sentence for a 2008 statutory rape conviction in DeSoto County. The Sunflower County coroner said in the news release that an autopsy will be done. The release did not say what illness Harden had.
Harden was at least the 40th inmate to die in a Mississippi prison since late December. The state prison system came under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department after several inmates were killed or injured during outbursts of violence in late December and early January.
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