A Lancaster County grand jury has reviewed the deaths of a dozen men in state custody, including longtime inmate Edward Poindexter and Erwin Charles Simants, who was committed to the Lincoln Regional Center for killing six members of a Lincoln County family in 1975.
Five of the others had been serving life sentences in state prison for murder.
The grand jury, which met once in January and in March to review the deaths, found no criminal wrongdoing in any. All but one had long-term health conditions. Most were at the Reception and Treatment Center, where the prison's medical facilities are located.
Poindexter's death on Dec. 7 there was not unexpected. He had advanced kidney disease and Parkinson's, among other pre-existing conditions, and had refused dialysis several times, according to the grand jury's report.
His family had sought compassionate release for him.
Poindexter, who died at the age of 79, had been in prison for more than 50 years for the booby-trap bombing death of an Omaha police officer, Larry Minard, on Aug. 17, 1970, a crime for which he denied responsibility.
Simants, who was 77, had been at the regional center since 1979 after being found not responsible by reason of insanity in one of Nebraska's most notorious mass killings.
On Oct. 18, 1975, Simants carried a loaded rifle into his sister's neighbor's house in Sutherland, near North Platte, where he killed the six members of the Kellie family, starting with a 10-year-old girl.
Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Henry Dimitroff told the grand jury that Simants had been having chest pains and was taken to a Lincoln hospital, where he ultimately died of heart failure on Aug. 31.
* Michael Gunther, 67, died of natural causes on May 18, 2023, at the RTC. Gunther, who had kidney and heart disease, had been serving a life sentence for killing Michael Zawodny on May 23, 2004, at a carnival near Bellevue and Gunther's estranged lover, Sally Kennedy, the same day in Iowa.
* Donald Lichtenberg, 84, who had been an inmate at RTC, died at a Lincoln hospital on May 20, 2023, of natural causes due to respiratory failure. He was serving a sentence for attempted first-degree sexual assault of a child in Douglas County.
* David Saxton, 54, died June 16, 2023, at RTC of natural causes related to colon cancer. He was serving time for killing Lonnie Sanchez, a 43-year-old Colorado man whose body was found at a transient camp near North Platte in 2014.
* Victor Ozuna, 53, died Oct. 9, 2023, at RTC of natural causes related to gastric cancer. He was serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in Douglas County.
* Carl Christian, 51, died Oct. 23, 2023, of natural causes at a Lincoln hospital following a heart attack. He had been seen on video collapsing suddenly at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where he was serving a sentence on a weapons charge.
* Clifford Davlin, 70, died Oct. 21, 2023, of natural causes related to cancer and kidney disease. He was serving a life sentence for murder and arson related to Tammi Ligenza's killing in 1993 in Lancaster County.
* Thomas Nesbitt, 77, died Dec. 13, 2023, of natural causes at RTC, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of Mary Kay Harmer in Omaha.
* Michael Pendell, 69, died Dec. 14, 2023, at RTC of natural causes, where he was serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a child in Gage County. He had developed pneumonia, which led to a brain injury.
* Ryan Poe, 39, died Jan. 12, 2024, at RTC of natural causes related to lung cancer. He was serving a life sentence for the 2004 murder of 23-year-old Trever Lee during a robbery in Douglas County.
The grand jury also reviewed the death of a 66-year-old Iowa inmate, Joseph Pray, who had been life-flighted to a Lincoln hospital from an Iowa hospital. He was serving a sentence in Clarinda, Iowa.