Ohio’s prisons department settles suit over inmate’s death

CLEVELAND (AP) — Ohio’s prisons department will pay $12,500 to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of an inmate who killed himself in his cell three days before he was scheduled for execution.

Cleveland.com reports the family of 44-year-old Billy Slagle filed suit in federal court in Cleveland in July 2014, about a year after Slagle was found dead in his cell at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution.

The settlement was signed by all parties in April, and the Slagle family’s negligence suit was dismissed last Thursday.

Atty. John Cameron says the lawsuit was never about money, instead it sought to hold the state accountable for Slagle’s death.

A prisons spokesman declined to comment on the settlement.

Slagle was convicted in the fatal 1987 stabbing of his neighbor, Mari Anne Pope.