A month ago, Latandra Ellington wrote a letter to her aunt from the Lowell Correctional Institution in Florida, saying, “He told me he’s going to beat me death. He was all in my face, then he grabbed his radio and said he was going to bust me in the head with it.” The 36-year-old African American inmate was extremely afraid of one of the people whose job it was to keep her safe during her imprisonment: a correctional officer. Ten day after she wrote the letter, on October 1, the mother of four was dead.

Though the circumstances of her death are still unclear, a private autopsy revealed that Ellington suffered from force trauma in her abdomen consistent with being kicked or punched. Appearing on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show,Miami Heraldinvestigative reporter Julie Brown dives into the details of the case, explaining that Ellington was just one of four inmates to die while in the state’s custody at Lowell in 2014. 
—N’Kosi Oates