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Gates reportedly suffered multiple stab wounds. Then on Jan. 2, a second inmate was killed at Parchman. This inmate has not been identified; he also suffered stab wounds according to the AP. Also on Jan. 2, Gregory Emary, 26, was killed at Chickasaw County Regional Correctional Facility. Despite the fatality, Chickasaw County Sheriff Jim Meyers told the AP that they had the situation under control in "three minutes. " Howell's death on Jan. 3 brought the week's grim total to 5. According to the MDOC, the first four deaths were part of a "major disturbance". Howell's death however is apparently unrelated. 3, two inmates escaped from Parchman during an emergency count in the prison. Inmates Dillion Williams, 27, and David May, 42 used a GMC Pickup truck in their escape according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations. They were both captured on Jan. 6. The fifth death came just a few days after Commissioner Hall announced that she will be resigning from her position in mid-January to work in the private sector.
But Mississippi prison authorities say Covid-19 has been a crisis their system has handled well. Officials announced in a news release last year that "Mississippi prisons remain among the safest in the nation from the Covid-19 virus. " Leo Honeycutt, a prison spokesman, said the system's relatively low official rates of infection and death are a model for correctional institutions. Of complaints that the system failed to conduct sufficient testing of inmates, officials said testing was only a small part of their Covid-19 strategy. They said inmates in Mississippi prisons were tested if they show symptoms. Asked about specific claims by prisoners, including Mr. Waldon and the inmate who said he lost his sense of smell and taste and declined to be named out of concerns about the response of prison officials, the officials said they were unaware of those cases. Mr. Honeycutt said prison officials doubted that Mr. Waldon and others used bleach to clean themselves because prison medical staff had not been notified about injuries consistent with that practice.