OH – Child molester died painful death

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Convicted child rapist and murderer Joel D. Yockey died a painful death.

A Franklin County coroner said Yockey, 50, of Wooster, died of a massive infection in his abdomen and blood caused by a torn bowel, which was caused by pancreatitis.

Ohio prison officials were partly to blame. “He was subjected to a very painful death,” Dr. William A. Cox said. “The lack of early care contributed to his death.”

Yockey became ill at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. He was taken to an outside hospital, the Ohio State University Medical Center, on Feb. 16 and died that day. Autopsy results from the Franklin County Coroner’s Office were released today by mail. The report details an abdomen full of foul-smelling fluid, inflammation, ulcers and dead tissue.

Yockey’s heart stopped beating because of the massive infection, Cox said. A prison spokeswoman said that even though Yockey is dead, officials would not comment on his medical history because of privacy laws.

On Sept 9, 2002, Yockey abducted 14-year-old Kristen Jackson near the Wayne County Fairgrounds. He raped and strangled her then cut her body into pieces, burying parts in a swamp. He dumped her torso off near a rural road then retrieved and buried it. To avoid a death sentence, Yockey pleaded guilty in December 2002 to aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping.

A law regarding sexual offenders was changed after Yockey’s conviction.

He had been released from prison in March 2002 for raping a 17-year-old in 1987. He moved into his parents’ house, near Kristen’s, but neighbors weren’t notified of his past because the law at the time did not require sheriff’s offices to notify a neighborhood of ex-cons labeled as sexually-oriented offenders. Notifications were only made about sexual predators – those deemed most dangerous and likely to re-offend.

Under the newer law, all types of sexual offenders are included in a database that can be accessed by the public.