A record number of inmates – 346 people — died behind bars in Florida last year.
Most were from natural causes, but a series of suspicious deaths have raised questions about safety in the prisons. Federal and state law enforcement agencies are now investigating why so many inmates have been dying.
Latandra Ellington, 36, was serving time for tax fraud at Lowell Correctional Institution in central Florida when she died. Algarene Jennings, Ellington's aunt, believes she was murdered.
Jennings lives in Lake Wales, a small town in central Florida surrounded by citrus groves. The scent of orange blossoms is in the air that stirs the wind chimes on her porch.
Jennings stayed in close contact with her niece while she was incarcerated. She has a stack of letters Ellington sent her from prison on a table in her living room. She carefully unfolds the last one she received.
"This is September 21 that she wrote this letter. She said, 'Aunt Rene, how are you feeling today. I hope and pray, great.' And she put a smiley face on it," Ellington says.
[For more of this story, written by Greg Allen, go to http://www.npr.org/2015/03/18/...ons-on-the-defensive]
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