London police have charged three men in connection with the death of Adam Harvey Kargus at the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre on Thursday.
Anthony Maurice George, 28, has been charged with one count of second-degree murder in the case.
Kargus was found dead on Friday morning, but London police Const. Melissa Duncan says “The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma from an assault that occurred on [Thursday] October 31st, 2013. The manner of death has been determined to be a homicide.”
George reportedly has a history of violent crimes, including robbery, assault and forcible confinement. He was Kargus’s cell mate, and that’s where the crime allegedly took place.
Twenty-nine-year-old Kargus, on the other hand, was serving a sentence for non-violent crimes at EMDC.
Bradley Scott Mielke, 51, and David Charles Cake, 34, are each charged with one count of being an accessory after the fact to murder.
The accessory charges relate to allegations the two men helped carry Kargus’s body from his cell to the shower area of a general population unit.
Police are thanking staff at EMDC for their assistance in the investigation.
Violence raises more questions about safety at EMDC
Sources say video surveillance shows Kargus being held up to the window of his cell, continuing to become more beaten and bloodied.
That same surveillance reportedly shows other inmates peering through their cell windows, cheering and egging on the attack. Their cheers and Kargus' cries for help may have been heard, had a correctional officer been in the area.
At Queen’s Park on Monday, London West MPP Peggy Sattler brought up the issue asking “Can the minister assure us that there were enough correctional officers on duty the night of this tragic fatality.”
Madelaine Meilleur, minister of correctional services, could not, saying “The day of the incident the EMDC capacity was 410, and there were 389 inmates in the facility.”
According to ministry documents, there should have been two correctional officers in the unit where Kargus was killed until 11 p.m. and then one for the remainder of the night.
Instead, several sources say there were only two guards overseeing three units of about 150 inmates as of 8 p.m. - leaving one unit completely unmanned except for regular checks. So it's likely nobody was around to hear those cries - the checks of the area coming only after the assault.
Kargus' body was reportedly found in the showers over an hour after inmates moved him from his cell – a move that took three minutes.
That’s the same amount of time it took a guard to move another inmate out of his cell in another part of the unit, which left 12 cells unsupervised.
Hundreds of cameras have been installed at EMDC over the past several months, but they only capture activity in common areas and hallways - not cells and showers where most assaults take place.
They have, however, proven to be of use after the fact - in this case, helping police with their investigation.
