By: John Hult
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – An inmate died in Department of Corrections custody this week, adding another name to a list of in-custody deaths that’s higher than the state has seen in recent memory.
Travis Long Fox, 33, died Friday in a Sioux Falls hospital. He’d been there since Tuesday, when he was found unresponsive in his cell at the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
The Division of Criminal Investigation plans to look into the death. Press releases from the Department of Corrections and Division of Criminal Investigation did not disclose further details.
This will be the fifth inmate death investigated by the DCI since February. Two people have been criminally charged for allegedly supplying the drugs that caused the overdose deaths of two inmates. In addition to the death of Long Fox, there are two other ongoing investigations into inmate deaths.
Nineteen men have died in state prison custody this calendar year, the highest number in at least a decade. At least four of those men died by suicide. At least three overdosed.
The department tracks inmate deaths by state fiscal year, which ends on June 30. The state is currently in fiscal year 2026.
By the fiscal year measurement, 2025 was the deadliest year in South Dakota’s prisons since at least 2018, with 19 total deaths.
The death of Long Fox brings the number for fiscal year 2026 to seven.
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