COLDWATER TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The death of a prisoner at a West Michigan correctional facility turned into a drug smuggling investigation with its first arrest this month.
Michigan State Police say Willam Wilson, an inmate at the Lakeland Correctional Facility just outside Coldwater, died unexpectedly on October 29, 2023. Because there was no obvious cause of death, his body was sent to the medical examiner for an autopsy.
A Pathologist at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids performed the autopsy and found balloons filled with meth inside the 57-year-old's body. Some of the balloons had broken, sending the drugs into the man's system.
The medical examiner's office ruled the death an overdose, saying the balloons likely burst while the man was trying to throw up the balloons.
Officials with the Michigan Department of Corrections retraced Wilson's last days and found he got the drug-filled balloons during an in-person visit two days before his death.
Security cameras captured a 24-year-old woman from Detroit passing a small object to Wilson from under her clothing. The prisoner was also recorded swallowing that object.
On Monday, March 4 the woman was arrested in Detroit on multiple felony charges including deliver of a controlled substance causing death.
State Police say the woman is just one of several people who took part in a plot to smuggle drugs into the prison. Although investigators have identified some of those suspects, only the 24-year-old woman has been arrested.
The woman will not be identified until she makes her first appearance in court. She is being held in the Branch County Jail pending arraignment.
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