State Police Update: Inmate Indicted For Murder Of Fellow Inmate In Washington County Prison

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(PIKESVILLE, MD) – An inmate was indicted on charges connected to the death of another prison inmate following an assault May 29 in Washington County.

The suspect, Thomas Cole, 39, is charged with second-degree murder and associated assault charges according to the criminal indictment filed by the Washington County State’s Attorney’s Office. He was already in custody at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown, Maryland, prior to the alleged assault.

Maryland State Police Homicide Unit Investigators conducted an investigation with assistance from the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Internal Investigations Unit. The deceased inmate Ronnie Harris, 56, was transported to a hospital after he was found unresponsive on a housing tier May 29 at the Maryland Correctional Training Center in Hagerstown. He died a day later.

Harris’ death was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, D.C. The cause of death was ruled to be blunt force trauma.

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Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: https://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at https://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at https://so.md/expungeme.