39-year-old is 8th SD inmate to die in 2024; 91st death in past decade

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A federal inmate housed by the South Dakota Department of Corrections (DOC) is the eighth offender to die in custody so far in 2024.

Earlier this week, the DOC announced the death of 70-year-old inmate Harry Kirkvold, the seventh inmate death of 2024.

The DOC announced Andrew Gordon’s death in a release Wednesday morning, noting he died on Tuesday and he was a federal offender housed at the Jameson Annex to the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

Gordon had been housed with the DOC for the U.S. Marshals Service since May 17, 2024.

KELOLAND News reached out to the DOC to enquire about the cause of death for Gordon, who was 39-years-old.

In an emailed response, DOC spokesperson Michael Winder cited DOC policy 300-20 Death of an Offender:

Certain individually identifiable information pertaining to an offender and the facts and circumstances of the offender’s death may be protected by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules/confidentiality requirements. The DOC security and clinical services staff providing health care to an offender are covered entities and must comply with confidential requirements regarding protected health information. Any member of the public requesting information from the DOC specific to the cause and/or manner of an offender’s death, will be referred to the county coroner/medical examiner’s office in the county where the death occurred. Certified copies of the final coroner’s report may be available from the county coroner/medical examiner’s office if/when the death is determined to be a public record. The DOC will not issue public statements regarding the cause of death.

DOC Policy

Prior to 2023, the DOC often, though not always, provided information surrounding the circumstances of an inmate death, citing things such as suicide, illness, complications from surgery, health conditions, natural causes and illness unrelated to COVID-19 in releases about inmate deaths.

The most recent example of this was the January 10, 2024 death of 30-year-old inmate Benjamin Block of suspected suicide. This is the only death in 2023 or 2024 with a cause attributed by the DOC.

Inmate deaths in the DOC system are not uncommon, though the number of deaths can range year to year, and more recent years appear to be more deadly.

In the last 10 years, from 2015 to today, there have been 91 deaths of inmates while in custody, as well as two executions.

Ages as well vary, with the youngest deaths since 2015 in the DOC being a pair of 23-year-olds.

Note: Official DOC statistical reports add additional deaths to the total number of inmate deaths. This is because these reports also include deaths of South Dakota inmates held in other states (see page 29 of linked report). The DOC does not appear to publicize these deaths within their News Achieve , from which the data in the story above was gathered.

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