Security Guard Arrest
An Alabama prison security guard is behind bars today.
The Alabama Department of Corrections Law Enforcement Services Division reported on Thursday the arrest of Lashonnon Belser, an ADOC correctional security guard at Ventress Correctional Facility.
Belser was taken to the Barbour County Jail and charged with Promoting Prison Contraband III.
The investigation is ongoing.
UAB and Prisons Lawsuit
The UAB Medical Center is being accused of stealing the organs of Alabama inmates after autopsies according to Al.com.
The news outlet reports the center along with the Alabama prisons are being sued by the families of five men who died in Alabama prisons.
Limestone Correctional Facility and the Hamilton Aged and Infirmed Center were named in the lawsuit where the inmates died.
The inmates each had their autopsies conducted by UAB.
The lawsuits allege, the inmates’ bodies were sent to funeral homes, where funeral directors found they were missing their organs and the university took and kept inmates’ organs without consent of next-of-kin.
UAB released a statement Thursday through a spokesperson who said in part, the institution is “in compliance with laws governing autopsies; our protocols require documented consent under the law, which includes consent for disposition of organs removed within the clinical standard necessary to determine a cause of death.”
Missing Children Found Safe
Two missing Montgomery children were found safe in Dallas County according to authorities.
An AMBER alert was issued Monday night for 13-year-old Janayizha Gunn and 5-year-old Kaiden Perryman.
The vehicle the children were reported in was found abandoned Wednesday around 10 a.m. at Hidden Acres trailer park.
Thankfully, the children were found several hours later.
Alabama Execution Date Set
The Alabama Supreme Court on Wednesday authorized the execution of a man convicted of killing a delivery driver who stopped at an ATM.
Justices granted the Alabama attorney general's request to authorize an execution date for 64-year-old Keith Edmund Gavin.
Gavin was convicted of capital murder for the 1998 shooting death of William Clinton Clayton, Jr. in Cherokee County.
A jury voted 10-2 in favor of the death penalty for Gavin. The trial court accepted the jury’s recommendation.
Gavin's attorney had asked the court not to authorize the execution, arguing the state was moving Gavin to the “front of the line” ahead of other inmates who had exhausted their appeals.
Gov. Kay Ivey will set the day of the execution, which will be carried out by lethal injection.
