By TERRI SANGINITI
The News Journal
04/28/2006
An inmate who died in custody at the Delaware Correctional Center near Smyrna last week was beaten and was the victim of foul play, state police acknowledged Thursday.
The results of an autopsy conducted by the state medical examiner on inmate Stephen F. Pytko have not been released because of pending toxicology tests, police said.
"There appeared to be bruising on the body which would be indicative of a beating assault," state police spokesman Lt. Joseph P. Aviola Jr. said.
Pytko, 57, of Wilmington, was found unresponsive in his prison cell early April 21 and could not be revived, officials said. He was pronounced dead at 12:40 a.m.
From the onset, state police said the death appeared to be a homicide.
But in the past week, few details have surfaced.
The slaying is the second inmate homicide in the Delaware Correctional Center in 10 years.
In 1996, inmate Robert E. Ashley fatally stabbed Thomas B. Younger with a shank during a knife fight that prison guards failed to stop, according to court records. Ashley is serving a life sentence in the slaying, after three trials.
Pytko, who had been in and out of jail throughout his life, was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for violating his parole.
He originally was sentenced to a mandatory 24 1/2-year term after being convicted in 1976 of kidnapping, robbery, possession of a deadly weapon during a felony, burglary and conspiracy. He was paroled in 1991 after serving 15 years.
Aviola said homicide investigators interviewed inmates and prison officers about the killing this week.
Aviola said detectives are focusing on how Pytko was injured and when his injuries occurred.
Pytko was not treated in the prison infirmary for any injuries before his death, police said.
Aviola didn't say whether detectives have a suspect.
"It remains under investigation," he said.
At the time of his death, Pytko shared a cell with another inmate in the medium-maximum unit.
'Not allowed to say anything'
Prison officials have remained close-mouthed this week about the investigation.
"It's not our investigation," said state Department of Correction spokeswoman Gail Stallings Minor. "We're not allowed to say anything."
Minor said state police are the lead investigators and all information related to the case has been turned over to them and the state Attorney General's Office.
"We're giving them whatever access they need," she said.
Thursday, Wilmington City Councilman Kevin F. Kelley, Sr. called for an investigation into Pytko's death by the U.S. attorney and state Attorney General's Office.
"He did not die in his sleep and did not die of natural causes," Kelley said. "He was assaulted or something happened to him in that prison. It's all being kept under a cloud of secrecy."
Wilmington official concerned
Kelley said authorities are keeping the man's family in the dark, "not knowing how or why Stephen died."
Kelley, who had known Pytko for 30 years, said he was an easygoing guy who knew his way around the block because he had been in and out of prison.
"You can't rule out anything," Kelley said. "It could have been a tussle with a guard."
The councilman said he was concerned about how prison administrators were running the state's correction facilities.
Pytko is the second friend of his who has met an untimely death while in a state facility, Kelley said.
Last year, Bill Cathell Jr., a mentally disabled schizophrenic incarcerated for setting fire to his apartment, died of a heart valve infection after prison officials failed to provide the emergency open-heart surgery he needed.
Cathell and Pytko both lived in the 700 block of S. Franklin St., where Kelley grew up.
"I have two friends of mine who died in prison within a year, who lived two blocks from me," he said. "I believe the prison system should be taken over by an independent commission until someone can decide what's happening there."
Contact Terri Sanginiti at 324-2771 or tsanginiti@delawareonline.com.
