Three state agencies involved in tracking and investigating in-custody deaths at Virginia prisons have reported divergent numbers for eight of the past 10 years.
In 2019, the corrections department, the medical examiner’s office and the Department of Criminal Justice Services all recorded 90 in-custody deaths. It was the last year before DCJS took over collection of the data.
Since then, the totals each agency has tallied generally diverge by fewer than 10 deaths each year — and preliminary numbers for 2026 match up. But in 2022, VADOC recorded 92 deaths; the medical examiner recorded 66; and DCJS tallied 85.
The lack of clarity around those figures could affect how the state medical examiner addresses a mandate to conduct autopsies after each prison death — a directive the office hasn’t fulfilled since a 2024 law began requiring the procedure.
The ME’s office previously said it’s “striving” to meet the standard, but has not made Dr. William Gormley, who leads the department, available for an interview since first being asked on May 13.
“We have shared the information that the OCME incorporates when calculating and reporting in‑custody DOC deaths, and the data collected by the OCME is what is subsequently reported to DCJS,” said a statement attributed to Maria Reppas, communications director of the Virginia Department of Health, which encompasses OCME.
Virginia Tech political science professor Brandy Faulkner said the data shows a lack of due diligence — a legal, ethical and public policy problem.
“The question becomes whether the medical examiner's office wants to close those gaps,” Faulkner said. “What are the incentives for doing so? Because obviously professionalism isn't cutting it.”
The fix, according to OCME, is to request additional state funding for the office. A fiscal impact statement tied to the legislation implementing the autopsy requirement said the new law would create a $287,000 need. While the state spending plan for the next two fiscal years hasn’t been finalized, the office’s budget could increase by about $580,000 over the previous biennial cycle.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office declined to discuss OCME and in-custody deaths on the record, though the Democrat appeared alongside Gormley at a recent ribbon cutting ceremony for the state’s new $189 million central laboratory.
Her office issued a statement following the event that included comment from the medical examiner, whose salary increased by about $124,000 between 2022 and 2026.
“This new facility represents much more than bricks and mortar,” Gormley said. “It reflects the Commonwealth’s investment in the vital work of medicolegal death investigation and in the people who carry out that work every day.”
The statement added that the new facility will double the number of “autopsy stations” available to the office.
The health department didn’t respond to a question about whether additional space or funding was keeping the office from completing the required autopsies. In an earlier email, Reppas’ statement also seemed to ignore state law specifying autopsies — not less extensive external exams — in the OCME requirement.
“The examination is either an autopsy or an external examination depending on the circumstances of death as previously described,” Reppas’ statement said.
DJCS is required to collect in-custody deaths information across the state and has used various sources of information to compile the numbers; it said because of that, years with different sources can’t be compared. And while its reported numbers are more closely aligned with VADOC data, discrepancies among the three departments persisted across the past 10 years.
The agency’s director, Ashaki McNeil, said “OCME may have different reporting sources, rules and definitions around what data is collected, reviewed, and considered ‘in-custody.’”
In-custody deaths, which include natural deaths and those caused by illnesses, are defined in code requiring DCJS to compile the data.
Sen. Mike Jones has previously visited Red Onion State Prison, one of the state’s pair of maximum-security facilities, and is planning another trip this year. He’s frequently discussed criminal justice reform and said the disconnect among agencies isn’t surprising.
“It's not about us writing more laws,” he said. “It's about the praxis — how they do their administrative function, their task, what they're called to do.”
Faulkner, the Tech professor, said any statute is subject to interpretation and its eventual implementation. But the state not being able to pinpoint in-custody death numbers or conduct statutorily required autopsies devalues human life.
“It needs to be solved quickly, because people are basically being told, ‘You don't matter. Your death does not matter,’” she said. “We can certainly say, yeah, that may mirror what the general public feels about those who are incarcerated, but that should not be coming from an administrative agency.”
Read more at Red Onion Resources.
Disclosure: Independent reporter Dave Cantor is suing the Virginia Department of Corrections to gain access to documentation of the agency’s use of tasers at Red Onion State Prison.