Joshua Hamer, incarcerated on a probation violation for nonviolent crimes, is beaten to death in prison.

By Eddie Burkhalter, Appleseed Researcher

Joshua Hamer with his son Joey (photo courtesy of his family)

After he was beaten on Nov. 6th, Joshua Hamer was placed back into his bunk at Bibb Correctional Facility unconscious, and wasn’t found until the next day. He never regained consciousness and died 16 days later. 

Mr. Hamer, who was 41, was imprisoned on a probation violation stemming from an 8-year-old theft conviction for not returning Redbox rental movies and video game disks in 2016, according to court records. 

Injuries to his brain were so severe that doctors at a local hospital told the family they were unable to perform surgery on his other injuries due to the severity of his brain damage. 

Judy Hamer, his aunt whom he lived with for the three years prior to entering prison, told Appleseed the family made the difficult decision to remove him from life support after he’d been in the hospital for 17 days. He died hours later, on November 23rd.

“His face was just literally kicked in….I just lost it. I was trying to be brave and I just lost it,” Ms. Hamer said of the moment he was removed from life support. 

An investigator with the state called Ms. Hamer and said they had identified three suspects in his death and may have a fourth, Ms. Hamer said. The family has heard an officer may have also been involved in allowing the other men to leave their dorm and enter Mr. Hamer’s, but it’s not yet clear. The Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) declined to answer Appleseed’s question as to whether anyone has been charged in Mr. Hamer’s death. 

“Inmate Joshua Joseph Hamer was admitted to UAB Hospital on November 6, 2024, for life-threatening injuries sustained in an inmate assault. He was pronounced deceased by an attending physician,” an ADOC spokeswoman told Appleseed. 

A good person who fell into addiction

A day prior to the beating Mr. Hamer called his aunt and asked her to send $50 so he could pay a man he owed money to. She didn’t know what he owed money for, but she suspects whomever he owed the money to may have beaten him regardless. 

“What bothers me is, what are they gonna do about it?,” asked Ms. Hamer. She wants to see justice done in her nephew’s death, and hopes the investigator was telling the truth when she told her she’d prosecute the death to the fullest. 

Ms. Hamer described her nephew as a good person who fell into drug addiction. He’d lost both parents by the time he moved in with Ms. Hamer, three years before he was sent to prison on the probation revocation. “He was a great electrician who could hook up anything and make it work,” Ms. Hamer said. He apprenticed with an electrician for a time and enjoyed working in construction, she said. 

Mr. Hamer had a 20-year-old son and two younger children.

“I have cried and cried and cried. Right now I’m mad, and when I get mad I want to do something,” Ms. Hamer said. The problem is, she’s unsure of what to do, she said. She hopes the investigator follows through with her promise to fully prosecute his killer or killers. 

“I don’t want him just walking around in there thinking, I got away with this because, what else can they do to me?,” Ms. Hamer said. 

Ms. Hamer’s fear that those who killed her nephew may not be held to account are warranted. To date, no one has been charged in the brutal kidnapping and assault death of Daniel Terry Williams, 22, who died the day he was set to be released, raising concerns that those who commit deadly assaults in Alabama prisons may believe they can do so with impunity. 

“so overcrowded it’s awful and I’m in here for not returning Redbox games and movies”

Mr. Hamer’s criminal record shows a history of drug and property offenses. He pled guilty to escape from a work release center in Decatur in 2009. 

The original charge that resulted in his 115 month sentence, of which he was to serve 19 months, was first-degree theft of property for not returning rental movies and games, according to court records. Those offenses occurred in April 2016 and he was arrested on the theft charge in December 2018. The indictment against Mr, Hamer states he failed to return “numerous Redbox movies and game disks” with a value of $7,124.19.  Redbox filed for bankruptcy in June 2024, which was 14 months after Mr. Hamer’s probation was revoked, and a judge a month later ordered the company to liquidate its assets and shutter the business. 

In September 2021, Mr. Hamer was arrested on drug possession charges, and coupled with not paying fees and not reporting to his probation officer as required under the Redbox theft conviction, a judge agreed to revoke his probation. He was ordered to serve the remainder of his 115-month sentence in prison, court records show. 

In February of this year Mr. Hamer wrote to a Madison County judge and asked that his probation reinstated, and said that since he’d been in prison he was baptized, had a construction job waiting for him in Huntsville. “My way has never worked so I’m going to try all this a different way,” he wrote to the judge. “Let God’s will in my life guide my life…I’m just asking [sic] one chance to prove myself to society.” The judge denied his motion. 

He wrote another Madison County judge in September of this year, just 41 days before he was attacked, asking the judge to help him. He wrote that the prison was “so overcrowded it’s awful and I’m in here for not returning Redbox games and movies,” and that “I love myself now.  Have a reason to want to live.” The judge hadn’t issued an order in response to his letter, court records show. 

Bibb Correctional Facility was at 198 percent capacity in September, the last month for which the Alabama Department of Corrections has published those figures.