ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Corrections is investigating at death at MCF-Rush City as a possible homicide after an inmate was found injured inside his cell.
According to a news release from the DOC, corrections officers were conducting regular rounds Sunday night when they found 56-year-old James Francis Howard in his cell around 11:30 p.m. with head and face injuries.
His cellmate, a 29-year-old man serving two sentences for assault that started on May 8, 2020, was taken into custody. According to the DOC, the two men were cellmates in a temporary housing unit and weren't actively enrolled in employment or programming.
The DOC says officers attempted to save Howard's life, but he was pronounced dead at 12:20 a.m.
Howard was serving a homicide sentence that began on September 17, 2012 with a possible release date in 2034. In 2011, James Howard, of Dalton, was indicted by an Otter Tail County grand jury on first and second-degree murder charges for attacking his 68-year-old mother, Barbara Howard, with a machete, according to the Associated Press.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Chisago County Sheriff’s Office, and the DOC’s Office of Special Investigations are assisting the investigation.
The Minnesota Department of Corrections says the last time an incarcerated person died after a fight with another inmate was in 2013 at the MCF-Oak Park Heights.
