A 22-year-old Alabama inmate was bound, raped, beaten and found brain dead just days before his release, his family said. He had been convicted of second-degree property theft, authorities said.
A 22-year-old Alabama prisoner just days from being released was found brain dead in a jail dorm after being bound, beaten and raped, according to his family. His parents and other loved ones say they've demanded answers, but received none.
Daniel Williams was nearing the end of a 12-month sentence for second-degree property theft when he was discovered unresponsive at the Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County, authorities said.
Few details have been released by prison officials. In response to a request for comment by Inside Edition Digital, the Alabama Department of Corrections said in a statement, "On Sunday, October 22, 2023, a possible inmate-on-inmate assault was reported at Staton Correctional Facility.”
Williams was taken to the prison's medical unit, then transferred to a local hospital for further treatment, according to the statement.
The incident is under investigation by the department's Law Enforcement Services Division, the statement said.
His family removed him from life support on Nov. 5 and Williams died on Nov. 9, his release date, relatives said.
"This baby was beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted at Staton Prison by a gang of people, with only 14 days until his release. He was pronounced brain dead on arrival to the hospital," reads a GoFundMe entry on an account established to raise money for Williams' family.
Terry Williams, the man's father, said the family was told by prison warden Joseph Headley that Daniel Williams had been hospitalized because of a drug overdose.
But when family members arrived at the hospital, they said they found Williams covered in bruises, with marks on his wrists as if he had been tied up.
“I went to the hospital and the nurses told me that he was assaulted and beaten really badly," his fiancée, Amber Williams, told WVTM-TV. "And when I went into the room, (he) had bruises all down his arm, like down to his fingers," she said. "He had cuts up and down and bruises on his legs, and it was bad.”
Relatives also said they had received information from prisoners inside the facilty that Williams had been bound and "sold out" to other inmates for two to three days before he was found unconscious.
His father told the station he called the warden "and I cussed him. I said, 'Dude, you know this is not an overdose case? You know exactly what happened.'"
The family says they were told the incident was under investigation, and that they've heard nothing since seeing Williams in the hospital.
Warden Headley did not respond to a detailed list of questions emailed to him by Inside Edition Digital on Monday.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Alabama in 2020, alleging its prison system “fails to provide adequate protection from prisoner-on-prisoner violence and prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse, fails to provide safe and sanitary conditions, and subjects prisoners to excessive force at the hands of prison staff."
Widespread use of excessive force by prison staff was common in Alabama prisons, the Justice Department found in two investigations — the first in 2019 and the second in 2020 — of the state correctional system. That violence, as well as overcrowding and substandard living conditions violated the Constitution's guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment, the government said.
In 2019, then-Sen. Cam Ward described the findings as “deeply humiliating” for Alabama. “It’s disgusting. I mean, it is," the Republican legislator told The Associated Press.
The state vowed to improve its prison system, and to ease overcrowding by building more jails, but prison advocacy groups say little has been done. Construction has yet to start on additional correctional facilities.
The federal lawsuit against Alabama is scheduled for trial in November 2024.
