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Chicago Tribune
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The death last December of a McHenry County man serving a 40-year sentence in a Downstate prison was caused by hypothermia, a coroner’s jury ruled Tuesday.

Officials said a prison nurse was fired and two other Illinois Department of Corrections employees were disciplined in the death of Charles Platcher, 31, who was found naked on the concrete floor of his solitary cell in Menard Correctional Center on Dec. 25.

Two valves that supplied heat to the third floor of the prison’s medical unit, where Platcher was being held in solitary confinement, were defective, according to testimony Tuesday before the Randolph County coroner’s jury.

The jury ruled that the death was accidental.

“No one had physically touched him in 24 hours,” said Randy Dudenbostel, the county’s chief deputy coroner. Dudenbostel said the temperature was 60 degrees in Platcher’s cell on the day he died and that it probably was much colder overnight.

Platcher, who was convicted of stabbing his mother to death in their Oakwood Hills home in 2001, was “basically a pretty healthy guy, physically,” weighing 200 pounds and standing just over 6 feet tall, Dudenbostel said.

Platcher had been segregated from the general inmate population three weeks before his death because of a rules infraction. His father said in an earlier interview that his son had an altercation with another inmate on Dec. 3 and had an altercation with two guards the next week.

On Dec. 17 Platcher threatened to use his clothes to hang himself, Dudenbostel said. He was placed on suicide watch in a solitary cell in the prison’s medical health-care unit. Platcher was stripped of his clothes and given a security blanket that resembles a heavy carpet that cannot be cut up or used as a noose, prison officials said. The cell also had a security mattress on a steel bunk.

About 8 a.m. Dec. 24, a prison doctor making routine rounds checked on Platcher and did not find any medical problems, Dudenbostel said.

During the next 24 hours, correctional officers and nurses checked Platcher every 10 minutes by making visual and oral contact with him through a porthole in the door and logged their observations, prison officials said.

The prison staff told investigators that when they asked Platcher if he wanted a meal or medication, he waved them off, prison officials said.

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Dec. 25, the prison doctor made another routine visit to Platcher’s cell and found him unconscious on the floor. His vital signs were stable, but his pupils were fixed and dilated, Dudenbostel said. According to testimony at the inquest, it was 26 degrees outside.

By the time Platcher arrived by ambulance at Memorial Hospital in nearby Chester at 9:51 a.m., his body temperature was 84.7 degrees, Dudenbostel said.

“They already had started CPR, and he had been in a warmer situation so his temperature could have come up quite a bit,” Dudenbostel said.

Platcher arrived at the hospital in full cardiac and respiratory arrest, but Dudenbostel said he could not determine when hypothermia set in.

“Their core temperature goes down, all the vitals start shutting down,” Dudenbostel said. “Body starts shutting down to sustain life, then eventually he quits breathing and his heart stops.”

Platcher was pronounced dead at 12:38 p.m.

Prison officials would not release details of the disciplinary action against the employees but said it was taken within a week of Platcher’s death.

“As a result of the investigation into this inmate’s death, we took immediate action against the employees,” said Sergio Molina, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. “We are in a position to make judgment calls like that based on their behavior and reaction” to Platcher’s situation.

The 40-minute inquest included testimony from Dudenbostel and Rick Harrington Jr., an investigator for the Department of Corrections. Harrington could not be reached for comment.

According to Dudenbostel, Harrington testified that he discovered that two valves that supplied heat to the third floor of the prison unit were defective but did not give details on the problem.

Molina said he had no information about any defect in the prison’s heating system but would not dispute the testimony from the coroner’s inquest. He said Menard uses steam heat, but he said he does not know how the heating system works.