Melvin Cancer
Melvin Cancer, a 53-year-old man, died on January 22, 2025, at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. His niece, Mary Anderson, said officials told her only that he had a heart attack, and she later heard from other people held there that he had been beaten. Officers took him from his cell to the shower area, where he collapsed, and prison officials first attributed his death to a heart attack. A Mississippi Department of Public Safety report to the U.S. Justice Department now lists the cause as blunt force trauma and the manner as homicide during an encounter with guards, and the FBI has opened an investigation.
Cause of death, as reported: Killed by staff (disputed). Prison officials first said he died of a heart attack, but a Mississippi Department of Public Safety report to the U.S. Justice Department and an FBI investigation treat his death as a homicide from blunt force trauma during an altercation with guards.
Reported by: Central Mississippi Correctional Facility officials (the agency that held him); Mississippi Department of Public Safety report (outside investigators); FBI (outside investigators).