OSBI investigates Comanche County Jail deaths

At the request of local officials, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation launched inquires into each of the seven inmate deaths at the Comanche County Detention Center since last July.

The dates of those deaths are Aug. 23 and 24, Sept. 14, Oct. 23, Nov. 25 and March 6 and 24.

At least two of the deaths have been referenced in State Department of Health inspection reports regarding sight check violations.

“When requested, the facility did not provide sight checks for an incident occurring on Nov. 25, 2023, for review,” according to OSDH’s May 14 inspection report. “When requested, the facility did not provide facility logs denoting counts and sight checks for an incident occurring on Oct. 23, 2023, for review.”

Cabelka said he did not know why deaths increased last year at the Comanche County Jail.

“I asked myself many times over the last year and a half when these deaths were coming up, ‘Why is this happening?’” Cabelka said. “I think I could only count two or three deaths in the last 10 years that took place in our jail, and they were all natural causes.”

Cabelka filed first-degree manslaughter charges against three men — Edward Brown Sr., Markie Ishman and Calvin Riss — in the Aug. 16 death of Matthew David Jones.

“In the case that I filed, the overcrowding had nothing to do with the action of the defendants that were charged [with] killing that particular inmate,” Cabelka said. “The jail had already been sending inmates to various counties well before any of the deaths occurred.”

Investigations into some of the other deaths are still pending, he said.

“I have made decisions that there was no criminal action — it was either a suicide or death of natural causes — on, I can comfortably, say four,” Cabelka said. “Other ones are still being investigated where maybe the only thing that’s left to wait on is the actual cause of death. The most recent one, that was earlier this year, I think I’ve actually maybe cleared that one — that it was a self-inflicted suicide.”

An OSDH inspection report from June 20, 2023, found that 113 hourly checks on the suicide watch and observation sheet were missed over a nine-day period.

Cabelka said he remains unsure whether there is correlation between the Comanche County Jail’s overcrowding and its spate of deaths.

“The jail right now is not overcrowded because we have so many people in so many different counties, so I don’t know,” Cabelka said. “But like I said, on most of the deaths, I’ve either ruled them as natural causes or suicides that I don’t think would have anything to do with the actual day-to-day operations of the population of the jail.”