RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? More than a year after the death of a North Carolina prison inmate left paralyzed after what he said was a beating by correctional officers, the state medical examiner has still not completed his autopsy report.
Timothy E. Helms, 49, died in a Greensboro hospital on Sept. 5, 2010, two years after his skull was smashed following an August 2008 fire in his prison cell at Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville.
In a coma for months following the incident, Helms suffered two skull fractures and severe brain damage as the result of what his medical records described as blunt-force trauma. Though he later recovered some ability to speak and move his limbs, Helms spent the rest of his life confined to a bed or wheelchair.
Patricia Barnes, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said autopsy reports are usually completed in about six months.
Barnes said Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Deborah Radisch had ordered additional testing of Helms? blood to help determine his cause of death, taking more time.
State law requires autopsy reports to be made public when the medical examiner completes them.
?We hope to have this out very soon,? Barnes said Friday.
Helms? attorneys said Saturday they understand a report is imminent.
Before his death, Helms claimed his injuries were the result of his being beaten by correctional officers wielding batons after he was pulled from his smoke-filled cell.
A subsequent SBI investigation failed to determine precisely how Helms received his injuries. Alvin W. Keller Jr., secretary of the state Correction Department, suggested the prisoner may have fallen and hit his head.
The only criminal charges in the case were filed against Helms, who was accused of setting fire to the cell in which he was locked. Those charges were later dropped.
A native of Concord, Helms had an IQ of 79 and had attended special education classes until he dropped out of high school at 16. Diagnosed with multiple psychiatric disorders, he was frequently admitted to state mental health facilities.
He was sentenced to three life terms on three counts of second-degree murder following a 1994 drunken-driving collision.
Helms? disabilities made him a difficult inmate for the prison system. In 14 years behind bars, he racked up 125 rules infractions, ranging from threatening to harm staff and possessing a razor to using profanity and hoarding postage stamps.
As punishment, he had spent at least 1,459 days in disciplinary or administrative segregation ? terms used in North Carolina to describe solitary confinement.
Correction Department policy is that no inmate should be housed in isolation for more than 60 days in a stretch, a period prisoners commonly refer to as being in ?The Hole.? But Helms? prison records show he was kept in isolation 571 consecutive days before the fire.
The treatment of prisoners at Alexander Correctional has been under scrutiny since 2006, when The Charlotte Observer reported that the staff routinely used a nylon strap similar to a dog leash to tether inmates whom administrators considered dangerous.
Article source: http://www.chron.com/news/article/No-autopsy-report-1-year-after-NC-inmate-s-death-2164412.php
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Source: http://medicaltips.biz/2011/09/11/no-autopsy-report-1-year-after-nc-inmates-death/
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