WOODVILLE – Several recent deaths at the Gib Lewis Unit in Woodville have been reported over the past two weeks.
Two inmates died in one day at the prison, on Thursday, April 30, and the next day, another inmate died.
Both Andrew Montana Webster, a 26-year-old serving a 40-year sentence on murder, out of Harris County, and Matthew Tyler Wellman, a 32-year-old convicted of multiple charges, including a 12 year sentence for an aggravated assault conviction, were pronounced deceased on April 30.
According to the custodial death report on Webster from the Attorney General’s office, the means of his death was a suicide by way of hanging, or strangulation. The report notes that on April 26, he’d been transported to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Hospital Galveston unit due to an attempted suicide.
The report on Wellman, who had been in custody since Sept. 5, 2024, state that the inmate was found unresponsive in his bunk, and while TDCJ staff initiated lifesaving measures and contacted EMS, he was pronounced deceased.
The means of death was listed in the report as natural, pending autopsy findings.
On the next day, on Friday, May 1, a 71-year-old inmate named Charles Phillip Hatton, who had been in custody since June 2023, convicted for continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, was pronounced deceased.
According to the report on Hatton, who was serving a life sentence, he was found in his cell in medical distress, and although lifesaving measures were initiated, and he was transported to Tyler County Hospital, he died. An autopsy has been ordered.
Hatton, who was a former employee of Kountze ISD, was given the maximum sentence on four charges following a guilty verdict.
