Fentanyl is killing people inside Alabama’s largest, most expensive law enforcement agency – the Alabama Department of Corrections

by Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

St. Clair Correctional Facility (photo by Bernard Troncale)

The lives of two young men, both 31, who died 23 days apart this year in separate Alabama prisons, were ended largely by the same drug, according to state medical examiners. 

Overdose deaths, and especially those deaths known or suspected of being caused by fentanyl, have soared in the state’s prisons. The overdose mortality rate in Alabama’s prisons last year of 435 per 100,000 people was 20 times the national rate across state prisons. 

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 in the minutes after his father last spoke to him by phone (photo courtesy of the family).

Tim Mathis knew his son, Chase, had a drug problem and had gotten into drug debt with other incarcerated men at Staton Correctional Facility, but when Chase realized his life was in danger and asked an officer for help, he was instead transferred to a dorm at Elmore Correctional Facility known for heavy drug activity, Mr. Mathis said. 

Chase Mathis died inside Elmore Correctional Facility on June 4 in the minutes after his father last spoke to him by phone, an ADOC investigator told Mr. Mathis. Instead of protecting his son, Mr. Mathis said the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) “threw him to the wolves.”  

What his son’s autopsy report shows is that the state’s medical examiner believes Chase died of accidental “mixed Drug toxicity (fentanyl and fluorofentanyl).” Fluorofentanyl is a synthetic form of fentanyl first produced in the 1960s. He was given two doses of Narcan, a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose, but it wasn’t effective, according to the autopsy report. 

“I know what he was doing. I know why he was in the prison, but he shouldn’t have died there,” Mr. Mathis said. He places the blame for his son’s overdose death squarely on the back of ADOC, which he said “needs to get off their asses and do something” about the rampant drug crisis across the state’s prisons. 

ADOC is desperate to increase its dismal staffing levels, but continues to bleed staff due to corruption, officer arrests, and turnover. Recent hiring efforts have produced applicants unable to pass the drug screens and fitness tests, and who have gang affiliations who have been weeded out, reducing the numbers of new recruits. This week, ADOC Commissioner John Hamm revealed that the 4,000-bed mega prison under construction in Elmore County will have a final cost, including furnishing and move-in costs, of $1.25 billion, the most expensive prison ever built in the United States. The ADOC has produced no plan as to how this prison will be staffed; neither did the agency submit a 2025 budget at the Joint Legislative Budget Committee hearing this week.

The loss of life continues, claiming sons, brothers, husbands

Wesley Abernathy, 31, died on Mother’s Day inside Bullock Correctional Facility. The ADOC investigator assigned to his death told his wife, Amber Abernathy, by phone last week that the toxicology report shows it was a lethal dose of fentanyl that killed her husband. That report isn’t yet public record, and awaits the local district attorney’s decision regarding any possible criminal charges before it can be released, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences wrote to Appleseed last week. 

Wesley and his wife, Amber Abernathy (photo courtesy of the family).

Mrs. Abernathy said she strongly believes her husband had no idea that what he may have taken before he died contained fentanyl. “He had been given it one time and was already scared of what it had done to him,” Mrs. Abernathy said. “They roll their own cigarettes, so they’re lacing these cigarettes with things.” She too blames ADOC for its failure in preventing the constant flow of drugs. 

“I don’t think that the guards are even watching when they should be, and you don’t know how many guards are bringing it in,” Mrs. Abernathy said. Mrs. Abernathy, who works as a social worker, asked why ADOC has not increased medical staff inside prisons as a result of the increasing numbers of overdose deaths. She warned other incarcerated people not to take substances from other incarcerated people or from officers, as they can’t be certain of what other drugs they might contain. 

Of those in ADOC custody, between 75 percent and 80 percent have substance use disorder, according to Appleseed’s report “A Bitter Pill.” Yet the drug treatment has plummeted across the prison system. In 2010, there were 5,242 incarcerated people in Alabama’s prisons who completed drug treatment, but by 2023 that number fell to 967. 

Alabama Appleseed asked ADOC whether Narcan, which cannot be abused, is made available to incarcerated people inside prison dorms. ADOC is working on a statement regarding the department’s use of Narcan, a spokeswoman told Appleseed. 

Alabama prisons saw a record 325 deaths in 2023. So far, ADOC investigations have determined that 112 of those deaths were from preventable causes, with 10 homicides, 13 suicides and 89 overdose deaths. The death rate in Alabama prisons has climbed to five times the national average. Alabama’s prisoner mortality rate is 1,370 deaths per 100,000 people, compared with a national average of 330 deaths per 100,000, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

ADOC has a serious problem hiring and retaining quality officers as well, leaving prisons woefully understaffed. Records requests show 366 staff were fired between 2018 to 2023. Of those, 134 were charged with work-related crimes, ranging from smuggling contraband to assault and murder. Commissioner Hamm acknowledged in this week’s legislative budget hearing that the department was not going to meet a court-ordered staffing increase of 2,000 more officers by January, 2025. 

While there have been arrests of both ADOC officers and civilians, charged with contraband-related crimes, in speaking with incarcerated people who witness the many drug deals inside Alabama prisons, those ADOC staff arrests are just the tip of the iceberg, and many more officers continue to smuggle drugs and other dangerous contraband for substantial payments.  

Prison officers arrested across the state

ADOC officer Monica Blakeney was arrested at Limestone Correctional Facility on July 31, charged with second-degree promoting prison contraband for allegedly bringing amphetamine/methamphetamine into the prison, according to news accounts. Blakeney was released from jail on a $5,000 bond. 

ADOC officer Annetta Smith was arrested August 1 and charged with promoting prison contraband and possession of marijuana. Smith is being held under a combined $30,000 bond for her two charges. Smith has since resigned from her position with the ADOC.

Court records state Smith on August 1 “smuggled three packages wrapped in black electrical tape into Staton Correctional Facility” which contained 273 grams of marijuana. She admitted to smuggling in the drugs under her clothing to sell to an incarcerated man, according to those records. 

Kilby Correctional Facility officer Tyree Lynette Hoyle, 46, was arrested March 24 and charged with use of position for personal gain and attempting to distribute drugs. Court records indicate Hoyle met ADOC officer, Ebony Chillous, at the Montgomery Zoo and received three packages containing suboxone, marijuana and a cell phone. Chillous is also charged with attempting to distribute drugs and using her office for personal gain. 

Charging documents state Hoyle on November 30, 2023, conspired with a state prison inmate and Chillous to deliver drugs inside the prison. She received a $500 Cash App payment from an incarcerated man on November 9 and transferred the payment into her personal bank account, according to court records. 

Mario Grant, 32, an officer at Kilby Correctional Facility, was arrested February 26 and is charged with use of official position for personal gain and conspiracy to commit a controlled substance crime after smuggling drugs into the prison. The charging documents do not state what drugs he is alleged to have brought into the prison.