The Alabama Department of Corrections did not report a homicide that occurred at Elmore Correctional Facility near Montgomery, Alabama, for more than 10 months.
Randall Thames, 40, was beaten to death in a dorm at the prison on June 20, 2024. His murder brings the number of reported homicides in 2024 to 15, which is likely an undercount because of underreporting, as Mr. Thames’s murder underscores.
ADOC first confirmed Mr. Thames’s death to local media on June 26, 2024, reporting that he had been found in “medical distress” at Elmore on June 19, lost consciousness, and died the next morning in the infirmary.
EJI received reports from incarcerated people at the time that Mr. Thames had been killed in an assault at Elmore. Local advocates also asked questions about his death, stating in a newsletter sent to numerous state lawmakers and federal authorities that the family of Mr. Thames had been “trying to get answers about his welfare” and that foul play was suspected.
State law requires ADOC to report to the Prison Oversight Committee the cause of death for each individual who dies in custody, “including the results of any autopsy provided to the department by a third party.” However, despite knowing Mr. Thames’s cause of death, ADOC reported to the committee in at least two subsequent quarterly reports that his death was under “open investigation.”
EJI recently confirmed Mr. Thames’s death as a homicide. An autopsy completed on June 21, 2024, listed Mr. Thames’s manner of death as “homicide” due to “blunt force trauma of the torso” with extensive injuries including eight fractured ribs, a lacerated spleen, and nearly three liters of blood pooled in his chest cavity.
A suspect was arrested and charged with Mr. Thames’s murder on June 25, 2024, with sworn testimony from ADOC that camera footage showed him grabbing Mr. Thames, punching him, and kneeing him repeatedly in the torso shortly before his death—and that incarcerated people witnessed the assault.
This case highlights longstanding concerns about ADOC’s handling of deaths in custody. In 2019, the U.S. Justice Department criticized Alabama prison officials for misrepresenting the causes of death and the number of homicides, overdose deaths, and natural deaths in the state’s prisons.
Nonetheless, and despite concerns from Republican and Democratic legislators that it would obstruct their ability to hold the department accountable, ADOC ceased publishing monthly reports on deaths in favor of quarterly reports in 2023. At the time, state Rep. Matt Simpson said that addressing the ADOC’s “poor decisions” would be on the docket in the upcoming legislative session, but no new legislation was passed.