Corcoran Inmate Starves to Death

An elderly prison inmate in Corcoran starved to death last week without medical or corrections staff recognizing that he had begun the last of several hunger strikes, authorities said.

Officials with the state Department of Corrections said the death of 72-year-old Khem Singh, who was so emaciated that he weighed less than 80 pounds, came as a surprise to staff at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran. He was not being monitored at the time for weight or fluid loss, officials said.

“The whole issue is being investigated,” said Margot Bach, a corrections spokeswoman. “If you’re on a food or hunger strike, certain protocols must be followed. Was there any way this could have been prevented? That’s the question.”

Singh, a Sikh priest from India who settled in the small San Joaquin Valley town of Ceres and spoke little English, had been sentenced to 23 years for inappropriately touching a young girl. He had been visiting her house to give her Sikh religious lessons.

Behind bars, the priest protested his innocence and refused to see family members or eat a diet that didn’t conform to his cultural practices, officials said.

“He came to prison in August of 2001 and he’s been on and off hunger strikes ever since,” Bach said. “He spent most of his time in his cell and didn’t make his appointments with medical staff.”

A corrections administrator who asked not to be named said that Singh’s death was the result of “deliberate indifference” by the prison staff. “It is inexcusable that an inmate could starve to death with all the medical policies and procedures that are mandated by the courts. It absolutely should never happen,” he said.

Because Singh was a sex offender, he was being housed for his own safety at the substance abuse facility, which sits adjacent to Corcoran State Prison and is considered a less hostile environment.

Kings County Coroner Rene Hanavan said Singh died Saturday of heart and lung failure due to “self-imposed starvation.” Singh, who stood 5-foot-6, hadn’t been placed on any special watch or given any special fluids despite being severely emaciated, he said.

“It appears that the starvation was on and off for a three-month period,” Hanavan said. “He had to be drinking or eating something during that time because, if not, he would have died a lot sooner.”

Corrections investigators will try to determine if medical neglect played a role in Singh’s death, officials said.

In a related case, Kings County prosecutors are continuing to investigate a Feb. 1 incident at Corcoran State Prison in which a 58-year-old inmate on dialysis was allowed to bleed to death in his cell during the Super Bowl.