22-year-old Daniel Williams was just days away from release when he died.
Warning: Distressing content
A man who died after allegedly being subjected to days of rape and torture inside a US prison issued a plea to friends and family just before his death.
Twenty-two-year-old Daniel Williams was weeks away from release from the Staton Correctional Facility in Alabama, where he was serving a 12-month sentence for second-degree theft, when he accessed social media to reach out to loved ones.
“How everybody doing,” he wrote on Facebook on October 15, the Daily Mail reported.
“I ain’t got too much longer left, pray for me, I’m coming home better than I was before, drug-free. It’s been a crazy ride, 3 different prisons now. It’s almost over.”
Within a week he would be found unresponsive in his dorm, after suffering horrific injuries.
Wardens who discovered him on October 22 took him to hospital, where he was declared brain dead.
He remained on life support until November 5, dying four days after it was removed.
After his death, his family were told that the young father-of-two was “kidnapped, bound, assaulted and sold out” by another inmate for “two or three days”.
An online fundraiser for the family claimed he was “beaten, tortured and sexually assaulted … by a gang of people with only 14 days until his release”.
This was despite authorities telling his family that he died from a drug overdose.
Williams’ family allege that they were not even told he was on life support until October 25.
“I spoke to the warden myself, he said it’s obviously a drug overdose,” Williams’ stepmother, Taylor Bostic, told the Alabama Political Reporter.
She said the family assumed he had taken some “bad drugs” but, when they saw him in prison, they knew there were other factors at play.
“And when we went to see him, he’s beaten and bruised up and you can tell where his hands were bound. I mean, you can tell it’s obviously not a drug overdose,” she said.
Williams’ fiancee Amber Williams said: “When I went into the room, he had bruises all down his arm, like down to his fingers, he had bruises over here. He had cuts up and down and bruises on his legs. And it was bad.”
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Daniel Williams was a father of two.
Williams’ father Terry then pressed the prison authorities for further information and was told his son’s death was under investigation.
His family say their request for a rape kit was initially denied and staff did not examine him until November 1. The results are not yet known.
Prison bosses confirmed they were looking into a “possible inmate-on-inmate assault”.
“The decision was made to transfer him to an area hospital for further evaluation and treatment. He remained at the hospital until the family decided to remove him from life support,” Alabama Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kelly Windham Betts said in a statement.
“The ADOC Law Enforcement Services Division is investigating the incident.”
Williams’ parents said they had hired a lawyer, hoping to hold someone accountable and save others from the same grim fate.
“We’ve got to stop this,” Terry Williams reportedly said. “If I can save a couple lives. You know. I’m thankful.”
Daniel Williams’ mother Tammy paid tribute to her son online, promising to “get justice”.
“My world my everything is gone why why why I promise you son I will take everything in my power to get justice for you.
“You didn’t deserve any of this, they took you away from me, they took you away from your wife, your daughter. You asked me every day to please watch out for your daughter I promise you son I will be here for the both of them.”
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