The mysterious death of a Hudson Correctional Facility inmate found Sunday wasn’t solved by an autopsy released today.
The cause is still unknown in the death of 44-year-old Wesley Shandy, an inmate from Alaska who was found unresponsive in his cell at the privately run prison.
Instead, the forensic investigation will continue, said Mark Ward, an investigator with the Weld County Coroner’s Office who has been assigned the case.
“Mr. Shandy didn’t have injuries that weren’t accidental in nature,” he said. “When people die or collapse, they injure themselves. No injury he had was life threatening — that could have caused his death.”
Microscopic evidence in the next week will help determine whether he could have died of natural causes, and a toxicology tests will determine whether drugs or alcohol Shandy might have consumed in the prison caused his death, Ward said.
His death also is being investigated by the Alaska Department of Corrections, the Colorado Department of Corrections, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the medium-security prison’s operator, GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla.
Shandy was serving a 19-year sentence for manslaughter, felony drunken driving and witness tampering in a case involving the 2005 death of his fiance, Roxanne Herndon.
She was killed when Shandy drove a four-wheeler with her aboard into the Ninilchik River. She fell off and drowned. Shandy was convicted last year, including that he urged witnesses to say Herndon was driving the four-wheeler.
Shandy’s criminal record included the 1989 beating and suffocation death of a drug dealer in Redmond, Wash., domestic-violence assault, shoplifting, two other DUIs and, at the time of his last arrest, was on parole for unemployment benefits fraud.
Joey Bunch: 303-954-1174 or jbunch@denverpost.com
