Deaths surged last year in KY prisons. One lawmaker wants to increase oversight
Ashley Elgin had already purchased a welcome-home banner and balloons, and she was planning to take her husband’s last name soon.
She told the Herald-Leader she was just nine days away from being reunited with Robert “Tony” Broyles Jr., 34, who had served six years at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex in West Liberty on firearm possession charges.
He arrived at the prison in 2022, and was going to be released early on good behavior credits.
Instead, she said she got a surprise call from the prison’s chaplain on Aug. 31, 2025: Her husband was dead. The chaplain wouldn’t give her additional information but said she could coordinate with the coroner’s office to pick up his body.
It wasn’t until she sent an open records request and spoke with other family members of inmates she learned her husband was killed by his cellmate, she said.
Broyles was one of 63 people who died in Kentucky prisons last year, according to state Department of Corrections data. That’s a significant increase from 2024, when 39 deaths were recorded, and is the highest mark since 2021, when the same number of prisoners died amid the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Add in the number of prisoners who died at Kentucky jails, and 97 total people died in the care of facilities overseen by the state Department of Corrections last year.
The spike in deaths — and what family members of those who have died describe as a frustrating lack of transparency — has captured the attention of at least one state lawmaker.
Sen. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, on Thursday introduced two bills and a resolution that would establish additional oversight of jails and prisons when a death occurs and establish a new procedure for how those deaths are investigated.
“People deserve to know that when someone dies in custody or during an arrest, there will be a clear process that produces answers, accountability, and changes that prevent the next loss,” Herron said. “Right now, too many families are left to fight for basic information. Kentucky can do better, and we should do better.”
Kentucky prison death spike
According to death logs obtained by the Herald-Leader through the Kentucky Open Records Act, the number of deaths in state prisons last year is a stark increase from recent years.
In 2020, when the population of many prisons plummeted in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, 28 people died. In 2021, that number jumped to 63, but it quickly settled back at a lower level.
The following year, 56 people died; in 2023, that number was 36, and it ticked up slightly to 39 in 2024.
But at 63 deaths, 2025 is a high water mark.
The Department of Corrections did not comment on the significant increase in deaths.
Over the past five years, 285 prisoners have died in the state’s 14 prisons, which house people who have been convicted of and sentenced for crimes.
Known as “death logs,” the state department keeps a record of inmates who die throughout the year that can be obtained only through open records. The list includes the person’s name, Department of Corrections ID number, the date of death, the staff member who reported the death, time of death, the facility name, cause of death, whether the family was notified and the date the notification was sent.
In records provided to the Herald-Leader, the cause of death was redacted, with officials previously citing an “invasion of privacy.”
Kentucky State Reformatory, in La Grange, consistently recorded the highest number of in-custody deaths since 2020, records show. It operated as a medium-security facility designated as the state’s medical and mental health services provider to more than 700 inmates.
The facility is closing in 2026 for demolition due to aging, unsafe infrastructure and staffing issues. It originally opened in 1939.
Families say the public has grown more aggressive in its pursuit for accountability and transparency from the Department of Corrections, especially after four deaths at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex happened within a five-month period.
Broyles, Ryan Rayburn, 27; Marcus Gray, 49; and Marvin Knuckles, 48; all died at the prison in the past six months.
Foul play is expected in the deaths of Broyles, Rayburn and Gray. The state said Knuckles died from an injury sustained while shoveling snow and ice Jan. 27 around midnight.
Lack of oversight, transparency from Kentucky DOC
Elgin, a former correctional staff member at Kentucky State Reformatory, said she saw firsthand how corrections officers often fail to follow their own trainings and protocols.
She witnessed a few unexpected deaths at the reformatory during her year working there. It was because of how the prison staff and department handled the deaths that she decided to quit, she said.
“They lighten it up,” Elgin said of death reporting. “They change the wording and make what happened a little less bad.”
She said the training correctional officers receive is not helpful and not actually practiced by officers working in the prison.
“Who they are training, how they are training them, and what (the prisons) are not saying, is a lot of the problems,” Elgin said.
Known as an “extraordinary occurrence report,” when death or serious injury of an inmate occurs in a Kentucky prison or jail, the department must be notified within 24 hours.
But even in reports filed to the DOC, Elgin says facts can be altered or left out entirely. For example, if staff missed their rounds or ignored medical complaints, a pattern of “deliberate indifference” could turn into a “sudden, unavoidable medical event,” she said.
Morgan Hall, the department’s spokesperson, did not immediately respond for comment.
At the local level, county jails — run by county officials but overseen by the Kentucky Department of Corrections — also saw a stubbornly high number of in-custody deaths.
A 2025 Herald-Leader analysis of jail deaths showed 234 people died in county jails from 2019 to 2024. That same analysis showed 34 people died in Kentucky jails in 2024 alone — more than any single year between 2008 and 2020.
The number of deaths in 2025 went unchanged at 34, according to the department’s death logs.
Steve Tussey, the previous jailer in Madison County, said when the department is made aware of an “extraordinary occurrence,” even if multiple reports are made, there is little oversight or recourse for the local facilities.
Deaths are not alone in requiring notice to the DOC within 24 hours, instances of serious injury, rape and fire require jail staff to make the report and a written notification within 48 hours.
The state then reviews the report to determine if the circumstances violate standards like overcrowding in living areas, plumbing fixtures needing repair or poor sanitation.
“I guess in the follow-up, quite honestly, most of the time, nothing,” Tussey said of how the department responds to violations.
Legislative package would establish oversight
Herron’s proposed package would help make death log data and investigations more accessible to the public through a database and create a fatality review board to evaluate jail and prison deaths and investigations of the incidents.
“If we do not collect data, we cannot establish patterns,” Herron said Thursday. “If we do not have patterns, we can’t address systemic issues.”
One bill, Senate Bill 208, would expand Kentucky’s post-mortem requirements to include deaths that occur during an arrest or while en route to incarceration, closing a gap between arrest and booking.
It would also require timely notification to the Kentucky state medical examiner and direct publication of an annual report with non-identifying demographic and incident details broken down by county and agency.
The second bill, Senate Bill 209, would create an independent review panel to investigate deaths of people in the custody of law enforcement, county jails, state correctional facilities, juvenile justice facilities and contracted private facilities.
The 16-person panel would have access to key records, publish findings and recommendations, and issue an annual report focused on system and process improvements to prevent more deaths, Herron said.
Finally, Herron’s resolution would create a mental health task force to study and recommend alternative community response models for mental health crises, with input from law enforcement, the courts, state agencies and mental health advocacy organizations. Kentucky’s need is urgent.
Herron said none of the changes would affect the criminal investigation process, but instead establish intervention processes before a crisis escalates.
“We should have systems that should be able to examine themselves honestly,” she said.
The bills await further action in the Senate.
This story was originally published February 20, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
