Birmingham, AL – An attorney questions whether Alabama prison officials really tried to find out how a state inmate was injured before he died in 2007.
The prison system released a report on the death of prisoner Farron Barksdale on Tuesday. It covered almost 800 pages without answering the one question that made the case such a disturbing mystery: What caused the bruises that prompted a doctor to think the inmate was beaten?
A lawyer for Barksdale's family, Sarah Geraghty, commends the department for determining the man's cause of death was pneumonia and other factors. But she questions whether officials made an ``honest attempt'' to determine what caused those bruises.
A department spokesman had no immediate response.
Barksdale pleaded guilty to murdering two Athens police officers in 2004.
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