The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Donovan Walker, a 42-year-old who was originally from Haverhill and was serving a life sentence for murder, was found at 8:44 a.m. in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security prison in Shirley. He was found hanging by a T-shirt and was pronounced dead two hours later at Leominster Hospital, said Diane Wiffin, spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction.

Wiffin said the death was referred to the local district attorney's office for investigation, and that the prison followed proper emergency response procedures.

But the apparent suicide has worried inmate advocates and lawyers who worked with Walker and said his death could have been prevented, given his history of mental illness and the previous suicide attempt.

The death was particularly troubling, advocates said, given the department's recent success in preventing suicides after an alarmingly high rate of deaths several years ago.

"There's a long history here," said Leslie Walker, executive director of Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services, an inmate advocacy group.

The Department of Correction reported no suicides in 2008, after seven in 2005, and 15 deaths from 2004-2006. This month, Richard J. Sharpe, 54, the cross-dressing dermatologist who fatally shot his estranged wife, was found dead of an apparent suicide at the state prison in Norfolk.

Wiffin said yesterday that the deaths of Sharpe and Walker remain under investigation.
Leslie Walker's agency became familiar with Donovan Walker - they are not related - last week after receiving a tip alleging that the inmate was beaten by a correctional officer so badly that he was brought to an outside hospital.

Early last week, an advocate attempted to visit Walker but could not because he was on mental health watch. On Friday, he was removed from suicide watch and an advocate was able to see him. Walker reported that he was beaten for not tucking in his shirt.

Wiffin would not comment on reports that Walker was beaten by an officer, or that he had been placed on suicide watch days earlier, saying the case remains under investigation.

The death is a tragedy for a man whose history of mental illness was part of the case against him, lawyers said. Walker was convicted of the 1999 fatal stabbing of a man outside an American Veterans Post bar in Haverhill. He was chased out of the bar by the man he eventually stabbed.

But lawyers had tried to raise a self-defense argument, saying Walker's limited mental capacity made him unaware of his surroundings or any alternatives to resorting to the stabbing, such as fleeing.

According to Ruth Greenberg, a Swampscott lawyer who represented Walker during an appeal, her client did not know well enough to get away. He did not have a criminal record before the stabbing. He worked as a home aide for elderly people. And even in his limited capacity, he was a good man, she said.

"It was sad every step of the way," she said. "He didn't understand what was happening around him that much, but he was a good person. He was kind. This is tragic."