Kerry Dale Presnell, 36, died on November 14, 2024, after a brutal assault at Elmore Correctional Facility in Elmore, Alabama. Mr. Presnell was serving a 20-year sentence for theft of property and would have been eligible for parole in March 2025.
According to reports received by EJI, Mr. Presnell was assaulted by a group of incarcerated men in a dorm and beaten severely with a broomstick.
Following the brutal assault, Mr. Presnell was taken to the prison infirmary. However, instead of investigating the assault or taking him for a medical evaluation, officers sent Mr. Presnell back to the dorm.
Mr. Presnell’s assault was not investigated and his attackers were not identified before he was ordered to return to his dorm. Mr. Presnell was later found beaten and unconscious in the dorm. He was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
Mr. Presnell is at least the 13th person to have been killed in an Alabama prison in 2024.
Alabama’s prison crisis is now in its sixth year since the Department of Justice notified the Alabama Department of Corrections that conditions within its prisons are unconstitutional. More than 80 men have been murdered in Alabama prisons during that time.
In 2019, the Justice Department notified Alabama’s governor that ADOC’s management practices “greatly contributed to the high level of violence” in the state’s prisons. Efforts to obtain the state’s voluntary compliance to address these problems failed and federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against ADOC in 2020.