We received the following letter from a man who’s currently incarcerated at Moberly Correctional Center. We are aware of the death he’s referencing and according to the latest data we received from the Missouri Department of Corrections, the death is still pending an autopsy so they’re not indicating whether it was “natural” or “unnatural”, yet.
Names were redacted by Missouri Prison Reform.
“Well, where do I begin? First off, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate it very much and i could use the help. The CO’s neglect us, when we holler for them, even by name, they walk right past us. When they do talk to us, they are most of the times eating like pizza or chips or something but that isn’t what’s really bad. Here at MCC the caseworkers don’t do enough and say it’s because they can’t. They recently integrated a kite system and when we send a kite that they made out, it takes days for us to get an answer, if we’re lucky and most of the time our answers just a reverse question. The conditions are horrible; its cold, bugs and spiders and whatever else can get in will. I killed centipede that was pretty big by my toilet. Heat works in some cells but it’s not enough. They don’t give us enough tape for plastic on the windows, so they fall off and when we complain they say we’re “beat”. They did an investigation recently cause a young man hung himself inside his cell and they told his family that he died of natural causes. There is nothing natural about being hung. The young man ***** ******* killed himself because of the conditions we all live in. He asked for a pen and the CO’s wouldn’t give him one and when they came around for chow at lunch, he was dead with a broken neck from the sheet. They wanted to violate him for tearing up the sheet and one CO, this was ********* **** CO1, puked on the corpse of this young man. Right on his face Prison should not be miserable but I don’t believe it should be comfortable. A lot of the CO’s don’t understand the difference between moral compass and obligation they think they only have to do something they are obligated to do and quite frankly that’s not a lot at all I think that is most if not all of it I hope to hear soon.”
Can you email us at Missouricjr@gmail.com? Are you able to access Facebook? We’re on all social media. You can remain anonymous.
Your website is blocked at the Transition Center of Saint Louis. Us "Residents" do have access to the internet. The TCSTL is operated by the Missouri Department of Corrections as a Level 1 Work Release Prison — it is NOT a Halfway House. Writing this at the Public Library. I am a "Resident" ( A/K/A/ Prisoner ). We are suppose to be released to the community, NOT TO ANOTHER DOC PRISON!!! Thank you for your dedication.