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Purdue Student Convicted Of Murder Found Dead In Jail Cell

Stan Jastrzebski
/
WBAA News

3:45 p.m. UPDATE:

Tippecanoe County Prosecutor Pat Harrington just called to say he's spoken to Andrew Boldt's family, but he declined to offer any specifics about the conversation. Boldt's family has been quiet since the sentencing -- they didn't talk to the media after Cody Cousins' trial was over and only gave Harrington a short statement to read to the media that afternoon. On his reaction to Cousins' suicide, Harrington says:

“I was thankful that this only involved him making a decision about his own life.”

EARLIER:

The man convicted of shooting and stabbing a Purdue student to death on campus earlier this year has died of an apparent suicide.

The Indiana Department of Corrections says Cody Cousins was found unresponsive in his Michigan City prison cell just before 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Officials say Cousins had self-inflicted lacerations to his neck and both arms. Prison staff performed CPR, but Cousins was pronounced dead at approximately 9:20 p.m.

Department of Corrections spokesman Doug Garrison says Cousins had been at the prison less than a week, following psychological evaluation at a state prison in Plainfield.

During that time, Garrison says, there was no indication Cousins was suicidal.

"All offenders are screened for psychological issues -- including suicide ideation -- while they're at Plainfield," Garrison says. "And nothing that happened at Plainfield gave us any indication this was something that might happen."

Garrison says the wounds that killed the former engineering major appear to have come from a standard-issue razor inmates are given for personal grooming.

"Offenders are issued razors for purposes of shaving. They're generally plastic razors that, with some manipulation, can have blades broken out on them, but that's obviously not what they're intended for," Garrison says.

Cousins, 24, was sentenced to 65 years in prison for the murder of Andrew Boldt in a classroom on the Purdue campus on January 21, 2014. 

The incident is under investigation by the Michigan City facility’s Internal Affairs Office and the LaPorte County Coroner’s Office.

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