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Inmate Dies at Youth Facility
By Amy Shannon
October 14, 2005

A corrections officer at Cypress Creek Juvenile Offender Correctional Center grew concerned early Thursday when a 17-year-old offender hadn’t changed position in his bed during routine checks.

Inside his cell, staff tried to wake Willie Lawrence Durden III, but he was unresponsive, said Mike Powers, spokesman for G4S Youth Services, a company contracted by the Department of Juvenile Justice to operate the facility. Nature Coast EMS workers transported Durden to Citrus Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:10 a.m., Powers said.

Citrus County sheriff’s deputies responded and found no signs of foul play, suicide or struggle, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Gail Tierney said.

Although officials said Durden’s death appeared to be natural, an autopsy was incomplete as of Thursday evening.

“I hate to say natural causes because a full autopsy must be done before we’ll know for sure,” Powers said. “We’re as anxious to find out what happened as anyone.”

Described as a “good student,” Durden was not taking medications and did not have any known health problems, Powers said.

“He had no recent altercations with anyone,” Powers said. “He was performing well.”

Durden was admitted to the Level 10, or maximum-security, prison in Oct. 22, 2004, following conviction of a July 2004 armed robbery of a pizza delivery worker in Jacksonville, DJJ spokesman Tom Denham said.

If he continued to do well, program officials recommended he be released in February 2006. Durden enjoyed athletics and tutoring others in reading, program officials said.

Denham said Citrus County School District volunteered grief counselors Thursday to help the facility’s offenders — many between the ages of 13 and 19 — deal with the teen’s death. Durden was jailed in a regular housing unit with other offenders.
 

 

 

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