MURDER USA: Thomas Cole Indicted for Murder of Inmate Ronnie Harris In Hagerstown Prison

MURDER USA: Thomas Cole Indicted for Murder of Inmate Ronnie Harris In Hagerstown Prison

MURDER USA: Prison Wasn’t A Safe Space For Convicted Armed Robber; Ronnie Lionel Harris Killed In The Big House

 PIKESVILLE, MD – The Maryland State Police reported on Aug. 20, 2019, that 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 Henry Cole, 39, (DOB 01/06/1980) of the Maryland Correctional Training Center, 18800 Roxbury Road, Hagerstown, Md., was charged by way of a criminal indictment by the Washington County Grand Jury with second-degree murder and associated assault charges according to the 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.

Cole was formerly from 1607 North Port Street in Baltimore City where he was charged with drug possession in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on Aug. 28, 2002. When Cole was convicted of armed robbery with a deadly weapon on April 30, 2004, was when the party really got started. He was given ten years in prison for armed robbery, kidnapping (10 years), false imprisonment (3 years), use of a handgun in the commission of a violent crime (5 years). On April 29, 2004, all counts were granted a judgment of acquittal.

The following day must have felt like a bummer for Cole as he was found guilty on April 30, 2004, of attempted second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. On the charge of use of a handgun in a crime, he picked up 5 years in prison.