One of two death-row 'suicides' may not be a suicide, official says

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia's top Department of Corrections official has now acknowledged that one of two recent reported suicides on Georgia's death row may not have been a suicide.

And while Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens told his board Thursday the GBI is investigating the death, a GBI spokesman on Friday said that was not the case.

During the agency's board meeting, Owens was asked about the inmates' deaths. "One of them may not be a suicide," Owens told the board, according to a transcript of the meeting.

On Dec. 6, condemned killer Timothy Pruitt died at Augusta State Medical Prison after sustaining injuries on Nov. 19. On New Year's Day, guards found death-row inmate Leeland Mark Braley hanging in his cell. Both were housed on death row at the state Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.

A number of family members of death-row inmates have said Pruitt's death was not a suicide and that he was likely killed by another death row inmate, Sara Totonchi, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said Friday.

At Thursday's meeting, board member Roger Garrison asked Owens if the GBI is investigating.  "Yes, sir," Owens replied.

But on Friday, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Corrections investigators only consulted with a GBI investigator about Pruitt's death. "As far as the GBI being actively involved in investigating either of these cases, we're not involved because we weren't asked," Bankhead said.

Corrections officials initially called Pruitt's death an "alleged suicide." Pruitt, 43, was sentenced to death for the 1992 rape and murder of Wendy Vincent, a 10-year-old Lumpkin County girl. Braley, 35, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the kidnapping and stabbing death of Kelli Hammond, an insurance agent from Zebulon.