TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Bureau of Investigation says it has begun an investigation into the death of an inmate at the women's prison in Topeka.
Television station KSNT reports that 35-year-old Jessica Chapman died Monday at the Kansas Department of Corrections’ Topeka Correctional Facility, a women’s prison.
The station initially confirmed the death through the KBI, because the Kansas prisons system did not send out a news release announcing the death.
Department spokeswoman Carol Pitts said Wednesday that the corrections department only provides news releases if an inmate death is related to COVID-19 or may have been due to drugs, suicide or violence.
Pitts says none of those circumstances apply to Chapman's death “as we know the facts at this time.”
The facility was the subject of a Department of Justice investigation more than eight years ago, which found that the Topeka Correctional Facility "fails to protect women prisoners from harm due to sexual abuse and misconduct from correctional staff and other prisoners in violation of their constitutional rights."
