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Indiana State Police investigating inmate death at St. Joseph County Jail

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WFIU/WTIU News

The Indiana State Police are investigating after an inmate was found dead in her cell at the St. Joseph County Jail Thursday morning.

ISP has identified the inmate as 49-year-old Christine Dezenzo of Elkhart, who was booked into the jail Wednesday afternoon.

According to a press release, jail staff found the female inmate alone and unresponsive in her cell in the jail’s medical unit at around 8:30 Thursday morning. Jail staff provided medical attention until paramedics arrived, but she was pronounced dead at the jail.

An autopsy is scheduled to be completed Friday at the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker School of Medicine in Kalamazoo.

This is the second inmate death at the jail this year. Two inmates died in 2021, and one of those deaths was later ruled a homicide.

Contact Jakob at jlazzaro@wvpe.org or follow him on Twitter at @JakobLazzaro.

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Updated: July 15, 2022 at 11:05 AM EDT
This story has been updated to reflect ISP's identification of the deceased.
Jakob Lazzaro came to Indiana from Chicago, where he graduated from Northwestern University in 2020 with a degree in Journalism and a double major in History. Before joining WVPE, he wrote NPR's Source of the Week e-mail newsletter, and previously worked for CalMatters, Pittsburgh's 90.5 WESA and North by Northwestern.