First inmate dies during COVID-19 outbreak at Butner federal prison in NC
An 81-year-old prisoner at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner died from COVID-19 complications on Saturday, according to federal officials.
Charles Richard Rootes, who had a long-term, pre-existing medical condition, went into respiratory failure on March 26 and was taken to the hospital, where he tested positive for COVID-19, according to a press release sent by the U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons.
The next day he was put on a ventilator.
As of 5:30 p.m. Sunday more than 80 people, including 22 employees, had tested positive at the Butner prison complex in Granville County.
Rootes had been in the medium-security facility, according to the Bureau of Prisons’ website.
The medium security facility houses 641 men, more than 40 of whom had tested positive for the coronavirus, as of Sunday.
More than 10 inmates had tested positive at the low-security facility, as of Sunday.
Rootes was serving a 99-year sentence after being convicted of kidnapping, motor-vehicle theft and rape in federal court in Tennessee.
He had been in custody since Oct. 22, 2019.
The state listed 89 cases in Granville County of Sunday, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services website. But that number may not include all the prison cases.
Prison staff members who test positive will show up under the county where they live, Lisa Harrison, director of the Granville-Vance Public Health, stated in an email Sunday. “If some staff of the Bureau of Prisons are also Granville County residents, they would show up in our community count,” she stated.
An employee was the first positive test at Butner, which has two medium-security prisons, a low-security prison and a medical center. The bureau reported it March 26. Four days later, it reported two inmates had tested positive.
The number of positive tests surged among inmates last weekend, jumping to nearly 60, and later in the week the number climbed for staff to more than 20. On Thursday, The News & Observer reported an internal email that revealed some inmates who tested positive had been hospitalized.
Those rising numbers convinced the bureau to include Butner among several prisons hit by the virus that are authorized to step up the early release of inmates.
This story was originally published April 12, 2020 at 5:05 PM.
