Another Death at a CCA Facility

Inmate Mixon dies in Bay County

Originaly found here
By David Adlerstein

Joseph Mixon, the man responsible for igniting the Nov. 2008 fire that destroyed the Apalachicola State Bank building downtown, has died.

According to a media statement issued Monday by the Corrections Corporation of America, Mixon, an inmate at the Bay Correctional Facility in Panama City, was pronounced dead by emergency medical technicians at 2:19 p.m. on Nov. 24.

“At this time the death appears to be of unnatural causes and does not appear to involve foul play,” read the statement.
Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Michael Hunter has the task of determining the cause of death. “Corrections Corporation of America is working in full cooperation with local and state law enforcement officials as they investigate,” the statement read.

Mixon arrived in April at the 985-bed Bay Correctional, which houses male inmates for the Florida Department of Corrections and has been managed by CCA since 1995 under a contract with the Florida Department of Management Services. CCA is the nation’s largest owner and operator of government-contracted correctional and detention facilities, operating 65 facilities, including 44 company-owned facilities, with approximately 87,000 beds, in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

Mixon, 45, of Apalachicola, was sentenced on May 11, 2009 by Circuit Judge James Hankinson to three years in state prison after being convicted on charges of grand theft of a motor vehicle and criminal mischief with property damage.

The convictions came as a result of Mixon’s actions during the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 15, 2008 when he rammed a 2007 Peterbilt truck he took without permission from Ward and Sons Seafood Company into the side of the bank building.

In addition to Apalachicola firefighters, crews responded from St. George Island, Carrabelle and Eastpoint, bringing with them eight trucks, including two ladder trucks that enabled better access to the flames engulfing the second story. The firefighters finished dousing the flames around 10 a.m. that morning, but the building would be later razed. The new bank on the site at Market Street and Avenue E, now owned by Centennial Bank, is in the process of construction.

Mixon spent several of his early adult years in state prison. He was sentenced to nine years in Oct. 1985, at the age of 20, for three felonies - burglary of an unoccupied structure, armed robbery and arson.

After his release in Dec. 1991, Mixon moved to Escambia County, where in Oct. 1995 he was convicted for selling marijuana and sentenced to three years. He was incarcerated until Nov. 1997.