Michigan's prison system, which reported just one homicide across its 26 facilities in all of 2025, recorded four suspected homicides in five weeks in the spring of 2026 — at four different facilities spread across the state. The deaths, reported by WXYZ-TV Detroit, drew the attention of state legislators and Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who directed MDOC to conduct an independent investigation.
The Four Deaths
March 27, 2026: Joshua McGehee was killed in a suspected homicide at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan.
April 8, 2026: Ronald Bishop died in an apparent homicide at Central Michigan Correctional Facility in St. Louis, Michigan.
April 15, 2026: Colton Mitchell, 36, was killed at Chippewa Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
April 22, 2026: Daniel Hosmer died in an apparent homicide at Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox Township, in the Detroit metro area.
That four homicides occurred at four separate facilities in five weeks made the pattern impossible to attribute to any single institution's management — it pointed instead toward something systemic within MDOC operations as a whole.
Context: From One Homicide to Four in Weeks
The spike was jarring against MDOC's own recent record. The department reported only one homicide across all 26 prisons in 2025, a year in which violent incidents and assaults were already attracting attention for other reasons. The jump from one homicide in an entire year to four in five weeks in early 2026 represented a departure from any recent baseline.
State legislators who covered corrections on the House and Senate oversight committees told reporters that the pattern demanded answers MDOC had not provided — specifically about what security conditions at each facility had allowed fatal attacks to occur.
MDOC's Staffing and Contraband Context
The homicides occurred against a backdrop of documented staffing pressure and an ongoing drug crisis inside Michigan prisons. According to a Michigan House Fiscal Agency budget summary for FY2024-25, MDOC paid approximately $118 million for 2.5 million hours of mandated overtime in 2024 — a figure that captures both the scale of understaffing and the cost of the compensating mechanism.
Five Upper Peninsula prisons — including Chippewa Correctional Facility, where Colton Mitchell was killed — had vacancy rates of 28 to 35 percent during this period. Geographic isolation in the UP creates the same recruiting challenges as Maryland's Western Correctional: it is difficult to staff facilities located far from population centers, and when vacancies are high, mandatory overtime and reduced supervision coverage follow.
MDOC also documented an ongoing drug infiltration crisis. Substance abuse-related visit restrictions in 2024 totaled 1,633 — an increase of roughly 400 from the previous year. Overdoses, including fentanyl, were occurring across the system. Drug-fueled conflicts and debt dynamics associated with contraband drug markets inside prisons are a known driver of inmate-on-inmate violence.
What Families Should Know
MDOC operates 26 adult correctional facilities. If your loved one is in one of the facilities involved in the spring 2026 homicides — Bellamy Creek, Central Michigan, Chippewa, or Macomb — or any other MDOC facility where you have safety concerns:
- Encourage them to report threats in writing to the housing officer and the facility's grievance coordinator. Written, dated reports create an institutional record that supports protective housing requests.
- Request a housing reclassification: Documented safety concerns can support a request for transfer to a different unit or facility.
- Contact MDOC's Office of Legal Affairs if a written safety complaint receives no response: michigan.gov/corrections.
- Contact the ACLU of Michigan (aclumich.org) for serious, documented safety situations or constitutional violations.
MDOC headquarters: 206 East Michigan Avenue, Lansing, MI 48933. Phone: (517) 335-1426. Website: michigan.gov/corrections.