Quantez Burks’ mother offers response to son’s autopsy listing ‘homicide’ as manner of death

BECKLEY, WV (WVNS) — In the weeks after her 37-year-old son, Quantez Burks, died at Southern Regional Jail on March 1, 2022, Kimberly Burks said she asked the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of West Virginia to provide an autopsy report to the family but never got it.

Autopsy reports are not generally available to the public.

In November 2022, West Virginia Department of Homeland Security officials released records under a federal Freedom of Information Act request by 59News, which showed only one inmate died at Southern Regional Jail on March 1, 2022 and that the inmate died of “heart disease” with a “natural” manner of death.

The Burks family had released photographs, showing Quantez Burks’ body was bruised and swollen from head to toe.

In the summer of 2024, nearly a year after seven former Southern Regional Jail correctional officers and their lieutenant were arrested in relation to her son’s death, Kimberly Burks said federal investigators told her that the State Medical Examiner’s Office had ruled Quantez Burks’ death a “homicide.”

“To find out that they actually labeled it as a homicide is a big deal to me,” Kimberly Burks said on Monday, September 16, 2024. “It made me feel a little better in that aspect.”

Federal prosecutors allege a group of those at Southern Regional falsified official state records after a group of guards allegedly handcuffed and beat Burks, who died of a heart attack during one such alleged incident, on March 1, 2022.

Four officers have pleaded guilty, and some have admitted to conspiring with others to cover what had allegedly happened to Quantez Burks.

Kimberly Burks said she believes others at Southern Regional Jail were involved in providing false reports to the public and intentionally keeping information about Quantez Burks’ death from his family.

Hours after Burks’ death, WVDHS officials stated in a press release that Burks had been combative with arresting officers from Beckley Police Department, that he had been combative with Southern Regional staff on admission and later with officers.

The autopsy report states that, although Beckley Police Department officers had called to notify Southern Regional staff that Quantez Burks was “uncooperative,” Burks was cooperative with officers.

The autopsy report also alleges Quantez Burks had told medical staff that BPD officers had “whooped him pretty good the day before.”

Kimberly Burks said on Monday that video of her son’s arrest, released by Beckley Police Department officials in May 2023, does not appear to show her son being seriously injured during the arrest.

“He had no injuries like that,” said Kimberly Burks. “I think it’s still a cover-up through Homeland Security. They have blamed somebody else for what they did.”

Kimberly Burks said she also questions the official state records of other inmates’ deaths.

In a statement to 59News on September 6, 2024, West Virginia Department of Health and Human Services officials said that when an inmate dies, “the investigation begins with gathering information from the death scene through the law enforcement agency assigned to investigate.

“A county medical examiner at the scene interacts with law enforcement officials, witnesses and first responders to collect initial details.”

The State Medical Examiner’s Office then collects law enforcement reports, which are often completed weeks, or months, after a death.

DHHS officials said additional evidence may be submitted, which can lead to a cause or manner of death being amended.

“It is important to emphasize that the OCME’s role it so as to ascertain the cause and manner of death without delving into questions of guilt or innocence,” the DHHS statement reads. “While the term ‘homicide’ may indicate the involvement of another person, it does not equate to a legal determination of murder or imply criminality.”

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