A 40-year-old prisoner being treated for alcohol withdrawal at the Fairbanks jail died Friday night, the Alaska corrections department said.
Joel Titus was found unresponsive at about 8:45 p.m. Friday during a security check, and he was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, the corrections department said in a prepared statement Saturday.
Titus had been in jail since Thursday; he was being charged with criminal mischief and failure to appear in court.
He spent about 90 minutes away from the jail Friday at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital before being "medically cleared," and started taking medication for "outpatient detoxification" when he returned to the Fairbanks Correctional Center in the afternoon, the corrections department said.
Corrections department spokesman Corey Allen-Young said officers check on prisoners every half hour at the Fairbanks jail.
But he didn't respond to a follow-up question about whether department policy required more frequent checks for prisoners being treated for alcohol withdrawal.
Titus is the eighth inmate to die in state custody this year, according to the corrections department.
Titus owned The Wireless Connection, a cellphone repair shop in Fairbanks that he originally opened in the corner of an art and clothing store owned by his ex-girlfriend, who's also the mother of Titus' son, according to a story last year in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
The business grew so quickly that Titus ended up expanding into half of the clothing store's space, the News-Miner story said.
"I know him as a go-getter," said David Guttenberg, a Fairbanks state legislator who said he ran into Titus occasionally.
Titus had had problems with alcohol but "he'd gotten sober," Guttenberg said. He added, "I thought he had potential to do good things, and be a role model for people that have gotten past their life's problems."