The Cole County Sheriff's Department is investigating a homicide at the Jefferson City Correctional Center after an inmate died from injuries suffered in an assault earlier this month.
According to a release from the department, the inmate, Mark Melton, 35, was assaulted Aug. 19 by his cellmate, who was unnamed in the release - and has not been charged - but described as a 33-year-old white male serving a sentence for second-degree murder and armed criminal action.
The release states Melton was severely beaten and transported to University Hospital in Columbia for treatment.
He died from the injuries Sunday.
The release states an autopsy was performed Monday and results would not be ready for several weeks.
The sheriff's department is working with the Missouri Department of Corrections and the Cole County prosecutor's office on the ongoing investigation.
Melton was serving a nine-year prison sentence for pleading guilty to a December 2007 charge of attempted first-degree sodomy from Dunklin County, which is in the Bootheel on the Arkansas border.
He was incarcerated in the correctional system in December 2009.
This marks the fourth murder to have taken place since the prison opened in 2004.