List of prison deaths

This is a list of notable people who have died in prison, whether actually in prison or in hospital while still serving a prison sentence. In alphabetical order, this list does not include inmates who were executed as punishment for their crimes.

Name	Date of death	Cause of death	Known for	Comments
Abu Abbas	2004	Natural causes	Militant
Jesse Anderson	1994	Beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver	American murderer
Susan Atkins	2009	Natural causes	Member of the Manson family
Andreas Baader	1977	Alleged suicide	Member of the Red Army Faction
Josef Bachmann	1970	Suicide	Attempt to assassinate APO student leader Rudi Dutschke
Klaus Barbie	1991	Leukemia	Nazi war criminal
Steve Biko	1977	Bludgeoned to death by South African police	South African anti-apartheid activist
Heinrich Boere	2013	Natural causes	Nazi war criminal
Samuel Bowers	2006	Cardio-pulmonary arrest	American white supremacist
Walter Breen	1993	Cancer	American child molester
Ariel Castro	2013	Suicide	Kidnapped and raped three American women for over a decade.
Richard Chase	1980	Suicide	The Vampire of Sacramento
Jeffrey Dahmer	1994	Beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver	American serial killer and cannibal
Garry David	1993	Died from wounds caused by self-mutilation	Robbery and attempted murder
Byron De La Beckwith	2001	Heart attack	American assassin
Sigurd Debus	1981	Hungerstrike	Alleged member of the Red Army Faction
Albert DeSalvo	1973	Murdered	The Boston Strangler
Antonie Dixon	2009	Suicide	New Zealand thief and murderer
Edarem	2012	Lung Cancer	American Internet personality
Gudrun Ensslin	1977	Alleged suicide	Member of the Red Army Faction
Clayton Fountain	2004	Heart attack	Member of the Aryan Brotherhood
Yuri Galanskov	1972	Death from an operation by a former doctor (another inmate) with no surgical qualifications	Russian poet, historian, and human rights activist, imprisoned for his writings
Kasturba Gandhi	1944	Natural causes	Wife of Mohandas Gandhi; fellow political protestor
John Geoghan	2003	Murdered by fellow inmate Joseph Druce	Catholic priest and child molester
Vincent Gigante	2005	Oxygen deprivation	American Mafia boss	Boss of Genovese crime family
John Wayne Glover	2005	Suicide (hanging)	Sydney Granny Murderer
Hermann Göring	1946	Suicide	Nazi
John Gotti	2002	Throat cancer	American mafia boss
Ryan Gracie	2007	Died as a result of brain injury	Brazilian mixed martial artist
Emil Hácha	1945	Unknown	President of Czechoslovakia, later of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia
Katharina Hammerschmidt	1975	Untreated cancer	Member of the Red Army Faction
Siegfried Hausner	1975	Severe burns untreated in custody	Member of the Red Army Faction
Colin Hatch	2011	Suspected Homicide	Notorious murderer and child molester
Rudolf Hess	1987	Suicide	Nazi
Myra Hindley	2002	Died in hospital after heart attack in prison	British serial killer
Colin Ireland	2012	Died as a result of hip injury.	British serial killer of gay men
Ilse Koch	1967	Suicide (hanging)	Commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp
Ronald Kray	1995	Heart attack	British gangster and murderer, twin brother of Reginald Kray
David Lane	2007	Epilepsy	American white nationalist
Ervil LeBaron	1981	Natural causes	American Mormon fundamentalist
Robert Ley	1945	Suicide (hanging)	Nazi war criminal
Richard Loeb	1936	Murdered by fellow inmate	American murderer
Philip Markoff	2010	Suicide	American murderer	Known as the "Craigslist killer"
Andrew Martinez	2006	Suicide	Nude activist
Ulrike Meinhof	1976	Alleged suicide	Member of the Red Army Faction
Holger Meins	1974	Hunger strike	Member of the Red Army Faction
Slobodan Milošević	2006	Heart attack	Serbian and Yugoslav president
Tjostolv Moland	2013	Suicide	Sentenced to death for murder, and espionage for Norway	Died in Congolese custody
Joe "Pegleg" Morgan	1993	Liver cancer	Mexican Mafia leader
Lawrence Phillips	2016	Suicide	American football player
Gavrilo Princip	1918	Malnutrition & skeletal tuberculosis	Yugoslav terrorist	Assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, beginning World War I
Richard Ramirez	2013	Cancer	American serial killer
Jan-Carl Raspe	1977	Alleged suicide	Member of the Red Army Faction
James Earl Ray	1998	Hepatitis C	Accused assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jack Ruby	1967	Pulmonary embolism	American nightclub owner	Murdered Lee Harvey Oswald
Bobby Sands	1981	Hunger strike	Irish republican	Died along with 9 other Republicans on hunger strike. See 1981 Irish Hunger Strike
Ingrid Schubert	1977	Alleged suicide	Member of the Red Army Faction
Harold Shipman	2004	Suicide by hanging	British doctor who killed many of his patients
Liu Shaoqi	1969	unknown	President of the People's Republic of China	Wrongly named a traitor during the Cultural Revolution
Richard Speck	1991	Heart attack	American mass murderer
John Straffen	2007	Natural causes	British serial killer	Longest-serving prisoner in British legal history, was in prison for 55 years until his death
Robert Stroud	1963	Natural causes	The Birdman of Alcatraz
Anthony Van Egmond	1838	Pneumonia, malnutrition and exposure	Dutch war veteran and an early settler in the Huron Tract
Nikolai Vavilov	1943	Malnutrition	Russian botanist and geneticist who was imprisoned for his struggle against pseudoscience
Raoul Wallenberg	1947 or later		Extrajudicial punishment in Soviet Lefortovo prison	Diplomat, rescued Jews during the Holocaust
Fred West	1995	Suicide by hanging	Multiple murders; was on remand awaiting trial
Graham Young	1990	Heart attack	Poisoner	Died in Parkhurst prison. Heart attack official cause but there has been speculation that other prisoners may have been responsible.
Bob Younger	1889	Tuberculosis	Bandit

See also

• Death in custody
• Prisoner suicide
• Lists of people by cause of death
• Category:People who died in prison custody