Newly surfaced images of Darren Rainey—a Black schizophrenic inmate who died at Florida’s Dade Correctional Institution in 2012—are raising questions about his cause of death, the Huffington Post reports.
Initially, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle‘s report said Rainey died from heart disease and schizophrenia, and the medical examiner, Dr. Emma Lew, failed to find burns on his body, the outlet said.
Consequently, the security guards who put Rainey in the shower were cleared of wrongdoing.
According to the Huffington Post, there were missing pieces in the prosecutor’s report, including key details from police officials and emergency staff about Rainey’s death.
The outlet reported that new gruesome autopsy photos, taken of Rainey hours after he died, show that he had burn all over his body.
“The photos show hot water burns, scald burns, and not decomposition,” forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden told The Post after careful review of the images. “One doesn’t decompose like that in 24 hours under any circumstances.”
Baden underscored that a thermometer in one of the photos read 94 degrees. That photo of Rainey’s body temperature was taken nearly a half day after his death, suggesting that his body temperature was far higher when he died. The pathologist said this is “consistent with his being in that hot water for a while.”
According to the outlet, Baden said that Schizophrenia cannot cause sudden death and his heart condition was “minimal.”
The medical examiner didn’t contest Baden’s points.
Rainey’s death generated conflicting reports. Prison guards said they put Rainey in the shower to wash feces from his body. However, several inmates claim that the shower—which was in a stall where they didn’t have control over the water temperature—was strictly used for punishment.
The prosecutor’s office said there’s no evidence that the shower was “dangerous nor unsafe,” The Post reported.
SOURCE: Huffington Post
SEE ALSO:
No Charges For Prison Guards Who Allegedly Boiled Black Schizophrenic Inmate To Death
Death Of Mentally Ill Inmate Locked In Hot Shower Ruled Accidental
