A LeFlore County Detention Center inmate, Gregory H.C. Baxter, was found deceased in his cell Saturday.
"Basically what we were informed, the Sheriff's Department received a call of an individual who was deceased in the LeFlore County Detention Center," LeFlore County Sheriff's Department Investigator Paul Moss said. "Deputies responded. All that we can disclose at this point is we are investigating that there was no foul play. If there was, then it will be investigated much properly. We do have an open investigation going on."
However, both Moss and LeFlore County Detention Center Administrator Dan Carter both believe that at the current time, all signs are leaning toward Baxter taking his own life.
"The way it initially appears, based off how he was found, indicated self-inflicted," Moss said. "That is not the final decision or the ruling of the Sheriff's office. That's why it is always investigated because you just never know, but that's how it appeared (self-inflicted) when detention officers and law enforcement located him."
"I did find out that OSBI (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation) said they were not coming down because there was no (sign of) foul play — or no potential of foul play," Carter said. "So, they were not coming to investigate it."
Moss said if all goes well, the investigation will conclude fairly quickly.
"If everything lines up right, it should be fairly quick," he said. "We were supposed to go over Tuesday and review all the security footage from the incident, do interviews, listen to two different phone calls and get a little bit of background there to see if there is any history with that individual. We want to review that (security) footage to see if there was anybody else that might have been in and out of that cell that could have caused (the inmate's death). If there isn't, then we just have to go with what we know on the evidence we've gathered."
Meanwhile, Carter said that he plans on continuing things as normal, which includes trying to help the inmates get reformed through getting to know Jesus Christ.
"We're going to keep doing what we're doing," he said. "We hope we can turn things around to where nobody wants to do that again — and actually find a reason to not to (take one's own life). We're going to try to introduce Christ to all of them."
