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Two incarcerated men died on Thursday died in correctional facilities in Jefferson County, with another having to be revived after a near-fatal overdose, according to the Jefferson County Coroner’s office.
Clarence Coefield, 72, an incarcerated man serving a life sentence for a murder committed in Lee County, was found unresponsive in the prison infirmary at William Donaldson Correctional Facility in Bessemer. Coefield was being treated in the facility for a “significant natural disease,” according to the coroner’s office.
In a statement released on Friday, the Jefferson County Coroner’s office said that no evidence of trauma or foul play related to the death was found. The Alabama Department of Correction’s Law Enforcement Service Division is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death, the coroner’s office said.
Wesley Wayne Moore, 34, an incarcerated man being held at the Jefferson County jail on multiple criminal charges, including criminal mischief, disorderly conduct, and assault, was found unresponsive on the floor in an inmate day space. Moore, who had been held at the prison since Aug. 20, was found with another unresponsive man in the same location.
The coroner’s office said that medical staff at the jail administered naloxone, a medication used to counter opioid overdoses that is commonly sold under the brand name Narcan, on Moore but were unsuccessful in reviving him. The second unresponsive man, who was not named in the report from the coroner’s office, was successfully revived.
Moore was transported to UAB hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s office is investigating the death.
The U.S. Justice Department, in their ongoing lawsuit against the ADOC, alleges that the flow of illegal narcotics into correctional facilities is exacerbated by a lack of sufficient staffing in nearly all of Alabama’s correctional facilities. Increases in overdoses and death among the state’s incarcerated population are a direct result of this lack of staffing.
