A Harford County man who was serving time for killing his two-month-old niece was found dead in his cell at a Maryland prison Wednesday, state investigators said.
Colin Wolf, 32, was found unresponsive in his cell at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, Maryland State Police said in a news release. Emergency medical personnel pronounced Wolf dead, and state investigators identified another prisoner as a suspect in his death.
Wolf’s is the third death that Maryland State Police are investigating at state prisons this month and the second at Roxbury Correctional Institution. Kelvin Hite, 27, was also found unresponsive in his cell at the Hagerstown prison on May 4. Two days later, Christopher White, 33, was found dead in his cell at Western Correctional Institution.
There have been at least eight possible homicides at Maryland prisons this year. Omar Valdez-Granados, 23, was found dead on the floor of his North Branch Correctional Institution cell in April. Quran Middleton-Bey, 31, was found dead in his cell at Eastern Correctional Institution in March.
There were also three Maryland prisoners killed at state facilities in January. Larry Horton, 51, died at North Branch Correctional Institution, and Joseph Harrell, 33, and Javon Foster, 38, were found dead in separate incidents at Jessup Correctional Institution.
State police were investigating the deaths of 13 people incarcerated in Maryland prisons last year, a decade-high and 44% year-over-year increase that experts attributed to staffing shortages. Only one of those deaths, that of Lawrence Antonio Borom, 21, was at Roxbury Correctional Institution.
Last year also marked a decade high in hiring for correctional officers at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, along with upgrades to surveillance technology and expanded crisis de-escalation training for staff, spokesperson Keith Martucci said in an email.
Martucci said they’ve seen positive impacts of the improvements on the common area of facilities, but most of the possible homicides happen in prisoners’ cells.
“Due to both constitutional requirements and operational constraints, housing cells are not designed for constant visual observation, in contrast to common areas,” Martucci said. “The Department conducts intelligence gathering and intervention practices, and reviews housing assignments and behavioral threat indicators to better identify risks before violence occurs.”
Online court documents show that Wolf had been serving a 33-year sentence for first-degree murder since pleading guilty in December 2015. Wolf was accused of killing his infant niece, Aubree Roberts, in April 2013, because he was angry at his sister for having the child with a man he did not like.
Wolf sprayed cologne into his baby niece’s mouth, authorities said, then punched her in the face. The 2-month-old baby suffered a brain hemorrhage that killed her. Wolf, who was 19 at the time of the incident, was deemed incompetent to stand trial.
But two more reevaluations deemed him fit. Wolf pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a life sentence with all but 33 years suspended.





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