The Mississippi Department of Corrections says autopsies will be done on two inmates who died last week in Jackson hospitals.
The department said in a news release Saturday that Charles Bates, 66, died Friday at Merit Health Central and Thaddeus Antwon Scales, 44, died Thursday at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Bates was serving 27 years at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. He was sentenced Aug. 4, 2008, for a child pornography conviction and March 4, 2010, for a conviction on sale of a controlled substance in Marion County.

Scales was serving 10 years at South Mississippi Correctional Institution for second-degree murder. He was sentenced May 13, 2019, in Marshall County.

Bates was at least the 85th inmate to die in Mississippi prisons since late December. Several inmates died during outbursts of violence in late December and early January. The U.S. Justice Department announced in February that it is investigating the state’s prison system.