Michigan State Police are investigating a third suspected homicide in seven months at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, after an inmate was found unresponsive in his cell earlier this month. Donte Roshod Houston, 35, was discovered unresponsive in his two-person cell around midday on Oct. 25, according to information attributed to Jenni Riehle.
A Pattern That Keeps Repeating
The case marks the third similar homicide at the same facility since March, according to the Detroit Free Press. That outlet, citing Riehle, reported the finding in an Oct. 27 email. Houston is suspected to have been killed by his cellmate, though the evidence reviewed does not identify that inmate or establish whether an arrest has been made.
The first of the three deaths happened overnight on March 27, when inmate Joshua McGehee died at the scene inside a Level 4 housing unit at Bellamy Creek. Michigan State Police were investigating that case as a suspected homicide, according to WZZM 13, which reported that lifesaving measures were attempted but unsuccessful. McGehee's cellmate, Michael Brewer, was treated as a suspect at the time.
Charges Filed in the March Death
That case has since moved through the courts. Michael Ryan Brewer, 35 — identified by state police in March as McGehee's cellmate — was charged with open murder and scheduled for arraignment Sept. 17 in Ionia District Court, per the Detroit Free Press.
Then came a second death at Bellamy Creek on Aug. 19, when Kevin Joseph Kelly, 36, was found unresponsive in his cell, according to WCMU Public Media. The Free Press described it as the second similar incident at the prison in less than five months. WCMU reported that state police identified Michael Christopher Glance as a person of interest in that investigation, though the evidence does not establish the final disposition of that case.
Staffing Strain at Bellamy Creek
Behind the string of deaths sits a staffing picture that outside reporting has repeatedly flagged. Bellamy Creek currently carries a 22.7% vacancy rate, per the same WCMU report — a figure WXYZ separately described as more than 22% of positions sitting empty. That compares with an average vacancy rate of roughly 16% across Michigan prisons statewide, according to Civic Media.
The corrections officers' union told Mid-Michigan Now that individual shifts at Bellamy Creek have sometimes run with 10 fewer officers than required. During the week of Aug. 8 through Aug. 15 alone, the union reported 359 overtime shifts worked by officers, including 147 that were mandatory, with 53 of those shifts in violation of policy. The Michigan Corrections Organization also told the outlet that the state lacks enough Level V security facilities, pushing higher-security prisoners into lower-security housing.
A Statewide Spike in Violence
Bellamy Creek is not an isolated flashpoint. WXYZ reported that Michigan prisons saw four suspected prisoner homicides in five weeks beginning March 27, a sharp contrast with 2025, when the Michigan Department of Corrections reported only one homicide across the state's 26 prisons, and with 2024, when four prisoners died in all. Separate suspected-homicide investigations have also touched Carson City Correctional Facility, where Johnathan Adam Brancheau, 28, died in his two-person cell with his cellmate identified as a suspect, according to CBS Detroit, and Chippewa Correctional Facility, where state police opened an investigation into an April 15 death during an alleged altercation, per Civic Media.
Statewide assault numbers have climbed alongside the deaths. The Michigan Department of Corrections reported 355 assaults against prison employees in 2025, up from 299 the year before, and 527 assaults against prisoners, up from 481 in 2024, according to Bridge Michigan. In response, MDOC announced a safe-prisons initiative in March 2026 focused on prisoner classification, contraband and technology, programming, training, and staff support and recruitment, with the department saying it would collect and analyze data to identify concerning trends and incidents.
The financial toll of past violence has also landed on the state. Bridge Michigan separately reported two judgments totaling $3.7 million tied to a series of 2022 stabbings at Macomb County Correctional Facility that killed two inmates and injured another. For now, the cause of Houston's death, the identity of any suspect, and whether charges will follow remain unresolved questions in the state police investigation at Bellamy Creek.
