Stiggers immediately alerted a corrections officer, who reported the medical emergency. The other prisoner was taken to Atrium Medical Center in Middletown for injuries from an apparent assault, including broken bones, loss of teeth and severe lacerations in addition to labored breathing. His clothing was saturated with blood and hospital staff said that once stable he would be flown to Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, according to a report released Thursday from the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Office of Criminal Investigations - Cincinnati Operations.
Credit: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction
Credit: Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction
During an interview with troopers, Stiggers said he was “in an altercation with his bunky” who was “being all aggressive” while they were high from “tune,” which the report described as “any paper product previously soaked with drugs of abuse or other intoxicants which had been dried. … Tune is then smoked to gain an intoxicating effect.”
Stiggers said that normally the prison does not house a Black inmate with a white inmate and said it was possible his cellmate, who is white, felt intimidated or scared of him, the report stated.
“He probably did, that’s probably why he was offering all the stuff he was offering to me. He was offering to smoke with me, he doesn’t know me,” Stiggers said.
While they were both intoxicated, Stiggers said his cellmate approached him and demanded he pay what he owed — which he did not define — or that he would “kick his (expletive),” the report stated. “And I just remember I lashed out ... because I can get killed in here.”
He said he felt threatened and because of his experience in the prison setting he attacked first.
“You can’t really turn the other cheek ’cause you turn the other cheek someone could kill you,” he said.
Stiggers said he remembered knocking his cellmate unconscious but didn’t remember anything after “swinging” at him.
“I could’ve stomped his head, I could’ve punched his head, I could’ve did anything to prevent you from killing me in a cell,” he said.
When asked whether he intended to kill his cellmate, Stiggers responded: “No, he was a good guy.”
Stiggers remains incarcerated at WCI.
He had been scheduled to be released Oct. 26 at the end of a 2½-year sentence for conviction in Allen County for possessing a firearm in a liquor establishment and carrying a concealed weapon, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Correction website.
The other inmate is incarcerated at the Allen Correctional Institution in Lima. He is serving 15 years to life for a 2022 murder conviction in Franklin County, ODRC records show.
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