INMATE'S HEROIN OVERDOSE PROBED

BURLINGTON - Authorities are investigating the death of a
prison inmate who overdosed on heroin Sunday afternoon.

Michael Henry Schrecongost, 46, died after he was found unresponsive
in his cell at the Kit Carson Correctional Facility, a private,
for-profit prison in Burlington, officials at the prison and the
Colorado Department of Corrections said.

A preliminary autopsy report, completed Tuesday, found Schrecongost
died of a heroin overdose. He apparently injected the drug, said Dr.
Anthony Olaiz, Kit Carson County coroner.

Prison officials believe the heroin was smuggled in, said Warden Dolan
Waller.

The inmate did not have any visitors Saturday or Sunday, Waller
said.

"We are reviewing all of our visitation procedures and guidelines to
see if there's a procedure we need to be concerned about," the warden
said.

The prison uses metal detectors, video cameras and staff supervisors
to keep tabs on inmates and visitors, Waller said. Visitors are
searched before, and inmates are searched after, each visit, he said.

Schrecongost had a history of drug abuse, Olaiz said. But officials
have no indication that the inmate was injecting heroin in prison
before Sunday.

Schrecongost was serving sentences for kidnapping and sexual assault;
he was convicted in Clear Creek County, according to records.

Kit Carson Correctional Facility, which opened in December 1998, is
one of three private prisons in Colorado that are run by Corrections
Corp. of America of Nashville, Tenn.

The Colorado Department of Corrections contracts with CCA to house
minimum- and medium-security inmates at the Burlington prison. The
facility now holds about 600 Colorado inmates, or about 4 percent of
the state's 15,400 inmates, corrections officials said.

Private, for-profit prisons have come under scrutiny nationwide for
management practices that allegedly have contributed to inmate
disruptions, escapes and deaths.

There is a nationwide trend toward more private prisons because of the
high costs of state-run facilities in the face of booming inmate
populations. Yet some communities, even those hungry for an economic
boost, have shunned private prisons because of a perceived lack of
accountability.

Schrecongost's death is the first suspicious inmate death at the Kit
Carson Correctional Facility, the warden said.