The relatives of a man who died in an Alabama prison say officials provided inadequate medical care before his death.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports the family of 45-year-old state inmate Michael Eddings says workers at Ventress prison in southeast Alabama were "deliberately indifferent" to his condition.
Eddings died on Sept. 24 after a bacterial infection developed into meningitis.
State health department officials have said two other Ventress inmates also developed the illness and were hospitalized. A statement from a law firm representing Eddings' relatives says prison officials allowed the infection to spread by providing insufficient care.
Eddings was serving a life sentence for murder in Jefferson County.
The Alabama Department of Corrections issued a news release saying Eddings was treated at the prison and was eventually transferred to a hospital, where he died.
Workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alabama Department of Public Health have been at Ventress this week screening inmates, workers and volunteers who might have come in contact with the infected prisoners.