A 33-year-old man was found dead in his cell at Western Correctional Institution, marking the third death of a Maryland prisoner in a week and a half.

Christopher White was found unresponsive in his cell just before 3 p.m. Wednesday, Maryland State Police officials said. He was pronounced dead and transported to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to determine the cause and manner of his death, police said.

Officials said White’s cellmate at the Washington County prison is being investigated as a suspect. State police believe he was in the cell at the time of White’s death.

Two days earlier, Kelvin Hite, 27, was found dead in his cell at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown; officials believe he was killed. On April 27, Omar Valdez-Granados, 23, was found dead on the floor of his cell at North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland.

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With White’s death, the first at Roxbury Correctional Institution this year, police are investigating seven possible homicides at Maryland prisons. In March, Quran Middleton-Bey, 31, died while jailed at Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover. Three prisoners died in January: Larry Horton, 51, at North Branch Correctional Institution, and Joseph Harrell, 33, and Javon Foster, 38, in separate incidents at Jessup Correctional Institution.

Last year, 13 people incarcerated in Maryland prisons were killed, a decade high that many attribute to staffing shortages. One person, Lawrence Antonio Borom, 21, died at Roxbury Correctional Institution after he was found lying on the floor suffering from apparent head injuries.