A Mason City man serving a 50-year sentence for murder is the 11th inmate in the state prison system to die after contracting Covid.
Sixty-four-year-old Larry Whaley was convicted of second-degree murder in the December 2016 death of 19-year-old Samantha Teeter, who was shot in the head through his apartment door in southeastern Mason City. The Iowa Department of Corrections says Whaley died Saturday morning at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City likely due to complications related to Covid-19 and other pre-existing conditions.
Whaley was serving his sentence at the state prison in Anamosa and had been taken to the hospital in Iowa City several days earlier for more advanced care as his medical condition started to worsen.
The Iowa Department of Corrections website shows two staff members who worked at the prisons in Mitchellville and Clarinda have also died with Covid.
There appears to be a current Covid outbreak at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison where 169 inmates have current infections. That’s about one out of four inmates in the state’s maximum-security prison.
Sixty inmates of the nearly 900 inmates in the Newton prison have the virus. At the state prison in Mount Pleasant, 50 inmates have recently tested positive and 32 inmates at the state prison in Fort Dodge have the virus.
(By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)