Deaths in Custody
Florida

At least 9,750 people have died in custody in Florida

9,743 of them are named here. The rest appear only in the state’s official counts, without names.

At least 388 people have died in custody in Florida so far in 2026. The most recent named here is James Robertson, who died on October 13, 2026 at Florida State Prison.

The Florida Department of Corrections publishes the name of everyone who dies in its prisons, so nearly everyone who died in a Florida state prison since 2000 is here. Most states publish only a count, or nothing, so a state with more people here is not necessarily a deadlier one.

Each dot is one of them, held in a jail, prison or lockup, or executed by the state. Some died after abuse by officers; others from withdrawal, overdose or untreated illness; many by suicide. Almost all of them show the state’s neglect of the people in its custody.

This is an undercount: many deaths are never made public, and older records are hard to find.

Records go back as far as 1878 and are current as of October 16, 2026

Their stories

Choose a dot on the map, or a kind of place below, to read about the people who died there.

Their names

When they died

One mark per person, by the year they died. Choose the box at the side to see every decade. Coverage is uneven: recent deaths come mostly from local news since 2000, older ones from official lists and historical newspapers, so the shape shows what was recorded as much as how many people died.

What these deaths have cost taxpayers

These deaths have cost taxpayers in Florida at least $8.1 million: the amount governments have agreed or been ordered to pay the families and estates of at least 8 people named here, in settlements and court awards reported in the news, and private contractors at least $2.8 million more. Families sued over at least 39 of these deaths. Many suits end with no amount made public, and many settlements are kept confidential, so the true cost is higher.

PersonPaid byYearAmount
Darren RaineyState of Florida2018$4.5 million
Nicholas ChristieUnreported$4 million
David SzakalosCorizon$2.5 million
Daniel Linsinbigler Jr.Clay County$2.2 million
Allen Daniel Hicks Sr.Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office$1 million
Dexter BarryArmor Correctional Health Services$300,000
Alia WardellEscambia County2025$200,000
Rommell JohnsonState of Florida$175,000

What official counts show

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has published yearly counts of deaths in Florida's state prisons, as the state reported them, for 2001 to 2019, but not who died. Most of those deaths, especially from illness, never appear in the news, so far fewer are named here. The gap is people still to be identified.

These are the counts the state itself reported to the federal government. The series ends in 2019 and has not been updated since.

YearDeaths in state custody, as reported by BJSNamed here
2019400401
2018440440
2017428428
2016356356
2015354353
2014346345
2013305305
2012324323
2011297295
2010275275
2009278278
2008291291
2007249249
2006261261
2005244244
2004226224
2003221220
2002183184
2001182182

Source: The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics Mortality in State and Federal Prisons, 2001–2019. Official counts are deaths in state prisons only; county jails report to no central agency.

Not on the state’s list

The Florida Department of Corrections publishes a named list of deaths in custody. At least 1 person named here died in that custody, in the years the list covers, but no matching entry appears on it. Some may be listed under a different spelling or date; others may be deaths that were never reported to the state.

Where these records come from

Each bar is a source and the years its records cover. Sources checked on a schedule are searched again for new records; the others were collected once.

  1. Historical newspapers1880–1963 · Searched once · Library of Congress digitized newspapers, searched for people taken from jails and officers and killed
    1880 to 1963
  2. Florida Department of Corrections, Execution Lists 1924-1964 and 1976-present1924–today · Checked every month
    1924 to today
  3. Florida Department of Corrections, Inmate Mortality2000–today · Checked every month
    2000 to today
  4. Local news2000–today · Searched again every night · News coverage searched county by county and year by year
    2000 to today
  5. Official yearly counts (BJS)2001–2019 · Checked every month · Totals only; the agency does not publish names
    2001 to 2019
  6. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Detainee Death Reporting and List of Deaths in ICE Custody2003–today · Checked every week · Records for this state: 2004–2026
    2003 to today

How deaths in custody are reported in Florida

The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) publishes an Inmate Mortality page that lists each death in a state prison with the person's name, department number, date of death, facility, the manner of death set by the medical examiner, and the status of the investigation, along with yearly totals by fiscal year (July to June).1 The page covers only recent fiscal years (from 2021-22 onward when I checked in October 2026), and it leaves the name blank when the manner of death is still pending or was ruled a homicide.1 The department has said a pending death means it has not yet received the medical examiner's findings, and that the name is withheld until then.2 Executions are left out of these counts and listed separately.13

Florida law requires the district medical examiner to determine the cause of death of anyone who dies in a prison or penal institution or in police custody.4 FDC says autopsy results and the cause and manner of death can be released only by the medical examiner, and it treats the medical records of people who die in its custody as confidential.1 Its mortality page has described the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) as the lead investigator of unattended and non-natural deaths in state prisons, with FDC's Office of Inspector General handling the rest.5

Florida has no law requiring sheriffs, police departments or jails to report a death in custody to any state agency. FDLE's Office of Criminal Justice Grants has collected death-in-custody data for the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act since October 1, 2019, but only agencies that receive federal grant money are required to report, agencies do not have to confirm a quarter with no deaths, and FDLE has written that it has no way to ensure every death is collected.6 The Florida Model Jail Standards, written by a working group appointed by the Florida Sheriffs Association and the Florida Association of Counties, require staff to write an internal incident report when someone dies in a county or city jail, but no report to the state.7 I have not found any state publication that counts or names the people who die in Florida's jails.

Deaths in immigration detention are reported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which lists each death by name and date on its website and links a report on each one; Congress requires ICE to make these reports public within 90 days.8 In Florida, ICE holds people at the Krome North Service Processing Center and the Broward Transitional Center, and at the federal Bureau of Prisons' Federal Detention Center in Miami.9

What has changed

  1. 1922-1923Martin Tabert, 22, of North Dakota died in 1922 after a flogging in a Putnam Lumber Company camp in Dixie County, where he had been sent by a county sheriff under the convict lease system.1011 After national coverage, the legislature in 1923 abolished the leasing of county prisoners to private companies, though forced labor in the turpentine camps went on.12
  2. 1932Arthur Maillefert, 19, died at the Sunbeam Prison Camp in Duval County, strangled by the chain that held him in place while his feet were locked in stocks.13
  3. 1945Jesse James Payne was taken from the unguarded Madison County jail and shot; his body was found on a highway seven miles from Madison.14
  4. 1979Florida resumed executions with John Spenkelink on May 25, 1979.3 The state had executed at least 196 people between 1924 and 1964.15 In 2025 it executed at least 19 people, more than twice as many as in any earlier year since 1979.3
  5. 2014Under scrutiny after Miami Herald reporting on prison deaths, including Darren Rainey's 2012 death after he was locked in a shower at Dade Correctional Institution, FDC put online a database of the roughly 3,400 deaths in its prisons since 2000, including names.16 The department also announced that all non-natural deaths would be investigated by FDLE.17
  6. 2016-2018The Miami-Dade medical examiner ruled Rainey's death an accident in January 2016.18 In January 2018 the state agreed to pay his family $4.5 million.19
  7. 2017Between October and November 2017, FDC removed the named lists for 2000 through 2011 from its mortality page.20
  8. 2020-2021FDC announced the first COVID-19 deaths in its prisons a week late, with no names, dates or places.21 On June 2, 2021, it stopped publishing COVID-19 data and said it would report deaths without saying whether COVID-19 was suspected.22
  9. 2022Between February and May 2022, FDC stopped showing the names of people whose deaths were pending or ruled homicides.23
  10. 2024FDC moved its mortality page to a new website that shows only recent fiscal years. The named lists for 2012 through mid-2021, and the links to redacted Inspector General case summaries that the old page carried, are no longer on the department's site.241
  11. 2025ICE reported deaths of people held at the Broward Transitional Center and Krome, among them Marie Ange Blaise in April and Hasan Ali Moh'D Saleh in October.2526 Human Rights Watch reported that Krome held nearly three times its operational capacity in early 2025.9

How far the official numbers can be trusted

FDC's early counts for any year undercount violent deaths, because many deaths stay pending for months or years. In 2019 the department listed 10 homicides and 20 pending deaths for fiscal 2017-18; by 2023 the same year showed 20 homicides and none pending.52 Fiscal 2021-22 showed 6 homicides in 2023, 12 in 2024 and 14 in 2026.2241 When I checked in October 2026, 101 of the 466 deaths in fiscal 2025-26 were still pending.1

Some deaths first recorded as natural were later found to be homicides. FDC's own list in October 2014 gave natural causes for the deaths of Terry Lewis in 2012 and Kenneth Dixon in 2014; by December 2016 both were listed as homicides.2728 Randall Jordan-Aparo's 2010 death at Franklin Correctional Institution was closed as natural, blamed on abscesses in his heart and lungs, until prison inspectors reopened it and concluded he had died after guards repeatedly gassed him.16 A state autopsy ruled Latandra Ellington's 2014 death at Lowell Correctional Institution natural; her family's lawyers said an independent autopsy found hemorrhaging caused by blunt force trauma.29

What FDC discloses has narrowed over time. It took a week to report the first COVID-19 deaths in 2020 and gave no details.21 From 2021 it stopped saying which deaths involved COVID-19,22 and since 2022 its list leaves out the names of the people whose deaths draw the most scrutiny: homicides and deaths still under review.231

Jail deaths are counted even less reliably. The Ocala Gazette found 23 deaths in the custody of the Marion County Sheriff's Office from 2020, but FDLE had recorded only seven of them in the data it sent to the U.S. Department of Justice.30 FDLE itself has written that it cannot ensure every death in custody in Florida is reported.6

Notes

  1. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality" (page and its fiscal-year data), accessed October 14, 2026. ↩
  2. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality," archived February 2, 2023 (Internet Archive). ↩
  3. Florida Department of Corrections, "Execution List: 1976 - present," accessed October 14, 2026. ↩
  4. Florida Statutes, section 406.11, "Examinations, investigations, and autopsies." ↩
  5. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality," archived May 5, 2019 (Internet Archive). ↩
  6. Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Office of Criminal Justice Grants, "Death in Custody Reporting Act State Implementation Plan," August 2023. ↩
  7. Florida Model Jail Standards Working Group, "Florida Model Jail Standards," effective January 1, 2026. ↩
  8. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, "Detainee Death Reporting," accessed October 14, 2026. ↩
  9. Human Rights Watch, "US: Immigrants Abused in Florida Detention Sites," July 21, 2025. ↩
  10. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, "Martin Tabert" (photograph RC13599). ↩
  11. Merry Helm, "Gudmunder Grimson, Part 3," Dakota Datebook, Prairie Public, April 25, 2022. ↩
  12. Jerrell H. Shofner, "Postscript to the Martin Tabert Case: Peonage as Usual in the Florida Turpentine Camps," Florida Historical Quarterly 60, no. 2 (1981). ↩
  13. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, "Arthur Maillefert" (photograph SP01529, 1932). ↩
  14. Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, Northeastern University School of Law, "Killing of Jesse James Payne in Florida in 1945." ↩
  15. Florida Department of Corrections, "Execution List 1924-1964," accessed October 14, 2026. ↩
  16. Julie K. Brown, Miami Herald, "Florida Creates Online Database of Prison Deaths," republished by Governing, September 10, 2014. ↩
  17. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality," archived September 22, 2014 (Internet Archive). ↩
  18. CBS Miami, "Herald: Sources Say Dade Inmate Death Ruled Accidental," January 22, 2016. ↩
  19. Julie K. Brown, Miami Herald via WLRN, "Florida OKs $4.5 Million Payout for Brutal Prison Shower Death of Darren Rainey," January 28, 2018. ↩
  20. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality," archived November 21, 2017 (Internet Archive); the year lists start at 2012, while a capture from October 22, 2017 still lists every year from 2000. ↩
  21. Laura Cassels, Florida Phoenix, "Undisclosed inmate deaths caught FL lawmakers off guard; now another death, with no details," April 16, 2020 (Internet Archive copy). ↩
  22. Grace Toohey, Orlando Sentinel, "Fla. prisons will no longer report COVID-19 data, require masks," republished by Corrections1, June 25, 2021. ↩
  23. Florida Department of Corrections, "Fiscal Year 2021-2022 Inmate Mortality," archived May 29, 2022 (Internet Archive); a capture from February 14, 2022 still shows every name. ↩
  24. Florida Department of Corrections, "Inmate Mortality" (former site), archived May 29, 2024 (Internet Archive). ↩
  25. WLRN, "Haitian immigrant dies in federal custody at Broward Transitional Center, report ICE officials," April 29, 2025. ↩
  26. WLRN, "Immigrant dies in ICE custody in Miami, the 17th death this year," October 20, 2025. ↩
  27. Florida Department of Corrections, inmate mortality data file (mortality.xml), archived October 15, 2014 (Internet Archive). ↩
  28. Florida Department of Corrections, inmate mortality data file (mortality.xml), archived December 5, 2016 (Internet Archive). ↩
  29. Greg Allen, NPR, "Record Number Of Inmate Deaths Has Florida Prisons On The Defensive," March 18, 2015 (via GBH). ↩
  30. Prison Legal News, "No Sunshine on Custody Deaths in Sunshine State," April 1, 2025, reporting on the Ocala Gazette. ↩

The 9,743 Florida records here draw on 796 news reports from 217 outlets, mostly local newspapers and TV stations. Each person’s reports are listed with their story, so every detail can be traced to where it was published.

How these records were made · See these records in a table

Last updated October 16, 2026.

Questions, a correction, or a death I’ve missed? Email me at orion.j.taylor@gmail.com.