In a sobering insight into life behind bars, Warren County Prosecutor David P. Fornshell has announced the sentencing of Jedidiah Hayes Lang, a 43-year-old inmate who pled guilty to the murder of his cellmate, Cody Bartimus, as reported by WLWT. According to WDTN, Lang has been given an additional 15 years to life sentence, which will run consecutively with his existing sentence for an unrelated 2013 murder in Knox County.
The incident took place at the Warren Correctional Institution in Turtlecreek Township, where prison staff discovered Bartimus unresponsive during a routine check on October 26, 2023. He was later pronounced dead from strangulation at Atrium Medical Center, confirmed by the Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, as detailed by FOX19 NOW. The investigation revealed a grim picture, Lang had used a towel in an attempt to "rip his head off," and admitted to being on top of Bartimus, applying pressure with his knee into Bartimus’ back while choking him with the towel.
While the graphic details of Bartimus' murder are unsettling, the context in which this violence occurred cannot be overlooked. With Warren Correctional housing mostly middle-level security prisoners, recently, it also witnessed the second-highest rate of inmate-on-inmate assaults among Ohio prisons, illustrating a broader concern over the safety and management within the correctional system. Bartimus, who was scheduled for release six weeks before his murder, had a troubling history of criminal conduct involving minors, including convictions of attempted sexual conduct with a minor and attempted kidnapping, as recounted in court records.
This homicide is not an isolated case within Warren Correctional, as there have been at least two other instances since May 2022 where fellow prisoners killed inmates; these incidents paint a disturbing picture of violence within the institution, adding to a strain of incidents even as nearby Lebanon Correctional Institution is also investigating another recent strangulation death of inmate Michael J. Scruggs as a suspected homicide. "It feels like in the last year especially there’s been more assaults that have happened," Dr. Russell Uptegrove, Warren County Coroner, alluded to a troubling trend in an interview with FOX19 NOW.
Lang's previous sentence stemmed from his guilty plea in the strangulation of Bradley Allen Grosscup in 2013; his continued incarceration will now be extended due to this recent act of violence, highlighting the complex intersection of criminal justice, inmate rehabilitation, and prison safety.
