A 28-year-old inmate at SCI Mercer has been charged with homicide after his 32-year-old cellmate died from injuries authorities say he suffered during a fight inside their shared cell. Donald Stinedurf now faces charges including homicide, aggravated assault, simple assault, and recklessly endangering another person in connection with the June 21 death of Joshua Tisak at the Findley Township state prison.
According to CBS Pittsburgh, court paperwork states Stinedurf was angry that Tisak was brewing hooch, or illicit prison alcohol, in their cell because he feared it could jeopardize an upcoming parole review. Police said the two men had fought before, and that on this occasion they got into it again. Stinedurf told investigators he and Tisak fought, but insisted Tisak did not die during that altercation and that he hoped the fight had not been bad enough to kill him, per the report.
Court paperwork described how Stinedurf allegedly tried to keep the incident hidden from staff. He reportedly covered the cell door window with a sheet and flushed the toilet to make it appear the covering was simply for privacy. Tisak fell out of his bunk bed three times afterward, and Stinedurf told police he believed his cellmate was just drunk each time he put him back into the bunk. Tisak reassured Stinedurf that he was fine, according to the account relayed to CBS Pittsburgh, before he began having trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital.
Coroner Rules Death a Homicide
Pennsylvania State Police were called to SCI Mercer on June 21 in Findley Township, police said. Following the fight, Superior Ambulance transported Tisak from the prison to AHN Grove City Hospital in Grove City, where medical personnel pronounced him dead at 5:42 a.m., according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. A coroner's report ruled Tisak's death a homicide, attributing it to blunt force trauma to the head, neck and trunk. Toxicology results included in that report also found buprenorphine and ethanol in his blood.
Tisak had been serving a three-to-six-year sentence at SCI Mercer for aggravated assault by vehicle while driving under the influence, having entered the facility on February 8, 2024, per the state corrections agency. He was a 2012 graduate of Ambridge Area High School from Economy, a Beaver County borough roughly 50 miles south of the prison, where he had worked outdoors and volunteered as an altar server at Good Samaritan Catholic Church, according to his obituary published by Alvarez-Hahn Funeral Services.
Contraband Trade Persists Despite Treatment Programs
The presence of both alcohol and buprenorphine in Tisak's system points to a broader contraband problem inside Pennsylvania's prisons. Suboxone strips that sell for around $3 on the street can fetch up to $50 each on the black market behind bars, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office, creating a financial incentive for illicit trade among inmates. The state corrections department also runs Medication-Assisted Treatment programs to provide prescribed buprenorphine, serving a prison population in which roughly 57% of inmates have a documented history of substance use disorder, per a CBS News report. It remains unclear exactly how the alcohol and buprenorphine involved in this case made it past cell checks.
SCI Mercer sits on a 300-acre campus in Findley Township and houses adult male inmates across 13 housing units, with 1,379 inmates against a public capacity of 1,476 as of December 2025, according to information compiled on Wikipedia. The facility opened in 1978 as a short-term regional lockup serving 14 northwestern Pennsylvania counties before converting in 2008 into a full state correctional institution with level 2 to 3 security classifications, covering minimum-to-medium security housing. Superintendent Melinda Adams oversees the prison, which received formal reaccreditation from the American Correctional Association on August 1 during the group's national conference in Pittsburgh, weeks before charges were filed in Tisak's death.
Under Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes Title 18 Section 2501, criminal homicide covers deaths caused intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently, serving as the umbrella statute prosecutors use to grade cases into first-, second- or third-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. It is not yet clear under which specific homicide grading Stinedurf's charge falls.
