This month, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences released records that show that Reginald Harris, 46, died on November 7, 2024, of stab wounds he suffered in an assault at Alabama’s Limestone Correctional Facility northwest of Huntsville.
According to the forensics report, Mr. Harris was stabbed in the head and torso multiple times on October 29, 2024. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died of his injuries a week later.
The autopsy concluded that the manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was “sharp force injuries.”
Although ADFS conducted the autopsy shortly after Mr. Harris’s death in 2024, the autopsy report was not released as a public record until this month.
The Alabama Department of Corrections has not reported Mr. Harris’s stabbing death or the results of any investigation.
Mr. Harris is at least the sixth person known to have been killed at Limestone in 2024. Earlier that year, Taurus White was stabbed to death on March 5, Samuel Ward was stabbed to death on March 23, Brelin McAlpine was stabbed to death on June 27, Elvin Cook was strangled and beaten to death in a restrictive housing unit on September 2, and Carl Powell was killed in a restrictive housing unit on October 26.
With six homicides in a single year, Limestone’s homicide rate in 2024 was 21 times the national average for state prisons, and as Mr. Harris’s case reflects, the true total may be higher. The causes of death for many individuals who died in Alabama prisons are still unreported.