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Inmate Found Dead In Charlotte County Cell

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By Kevin Dale/Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: September 13, 2007

CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Prison officials are investigating the death of a Charlotte County Correctional Institution inmate who had been sentenced to life for sexually assaulting a 5-year-old boy.

A corrections officer found Richard Seccia, 69, "unresponsive in his cell" about 5 p.m. Monday, said Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a state Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

Rackleff would not say whether officials suspect Seccia was slain. But the death occurred after Seccia and his cellmate were locked up after dinner, she said.

A corrections officer taking inmates to a day room found Seccia's body.

Rackleff said she could not name Seccia's cellmate because of the investigation.

"We do not expect any staff involvement in this death," she said.

Seccia's body was taken to the Charlotte County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

Investigators from the corrections department and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement examined the crime scene at the Oil Well Road prison near the Charlotte-Lee county line.

The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office is not involved in the investigation, office spokesman Bob Carpenter said.

In 1996, a Duval County jury sentenced Seccia to life in prison for the capital sexual battery of the boy, records show.

Seccia, who was convicted of a previous sexual battery in 1976, won a retrial in 1997, but another jury upheld the life sentence, court records show.

The Charlotte Correctional Institution, which houses 1,117 men, was the site of the June 2003 murder of corrections officer Darla Lathrem.

Inmate Dwight Eaglin, who has been sentenced to death, beat Lathrem with a sledgehammer during an escape attempt with two fellow inmates.

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