State patrol investigates suspicious death at TCI as possible drug overdose

Staff report

LEAVITTSBURG

The Ohio State Highway Patrol investigated the Aug. 1 death of Caleb M. Klinksiek, 29, at the Trumbull Correctional Institute as a possible drug overdose.

An official ruling on the cause and manner of his death, however, is awaiting final autopsy results, including toxicology results, said Sgt. Ronald Schneider of the patrol’s Office of Investigative Services in the Warren district offices in Southington.

Klinksiek was sentenced to six years in prison in early 2014 after being convicted of felonious assault with a specification of being a repeat violent offender in Medina County Common Pleas Court.

The conviction stemmed from an assault at a bonfire at a home in Medina in 2013, according to court records.

Investigative Services investigates crimes involving state property in a seven-county area, including those at four prisons: TCI, Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown, Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown and Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Conneaut.

Schneider said there are overdose deaths in state prisons “much like the streets” in that: “They don’t know the contents of what they are getting.”

Schneider said he hasn’t noticed any up or down trends recently in prison-overdose deaths.

Before Klinksiek, the prison did have one other overdose death: Ryan Mangus, 37, of Kent, who died of a heroin overdose Sept. 19, 2015.

Julie Loomis, public information officer at the prison, said prison officials take steps to keep drugs out. One way has been to keep the trees around the fence line cut back to make it harder for people to throw drugs over the fence.