Sarah Reese
Lake County Courts and Social Justice Reporter


MICHIGAN CITY — A 57-year-old lieutenant has been identified as the correctional officer killed in a stabbing Sunday at Indiana State Prison, the LaPorte County coroner said.

Lt. Gene Lasco, of LaPorte, died from stab wounds, Coroner Lynn Swanson said.

Lasco and another correctional officer were taken to Franciscan Health in Michigan City after an inmate stabbed them about 2:40 p.m. Sunday in a common area of the prison, according to Indiana State Police.

The other correctional officer was in serious condition Sunday night, police said.

Inmate Tymetri Campbell, 38, was being held on suspicion of murder and other charges, police said.

Campbell was sentenced in Marion County in January 2004 to 130 years in prison for three murders, according to Indiana Department of Correction and Indiana Court of Appeals records.

The Court of Appeals in 2007 upheld Campbell's sentence, despite his argument a lower court didn't take his remorse for the killings into consideration.

Indiana State Prison is the state's oldest correctional facility. Its maximum security section houses inmates with longer sentences and those convicted of violent crimes.

Three inmates at the prison have been stabbed to death since 2017, according to information obtained by The Times.

Daniel L. Heflin, 30, who was originally from Goshen, died Jan. 21 from a stab wound to the right side of his head, Swanson said.

Indiana State Police were investigating Heflin's homicide. Heflin was serving a sentence for murder in Elkhart County at the time of his death.

Inmate Gerald A. Wharry Jr., 23, died in a stabbing Sept. 19, 2019, at the prison, records show.

Wharry's fellow inmate, Michael A. Ayers, 27, who was serving sentences for attempted murder and robbery, was charged in January 2020 with one count of murder in Wharry's homicide. Ayers is currently scheduled to stand trial in January 2022.

Inmate Willie L. Steele, 49, died from a stab wound July 26, 2017, at the prison, records show.

Steele was serving a sentence for the murders of Lillie Miller, 79, and her daughter Doressa Miller, 52 — the grandmother and aunt of a Gary police officer — on Oct. 30, 2009. The women had been bound, scalded with hot water and strangled.

Steele killed the women about six weeks after completing a previous sentence for the rape and murder of Crown Point schoolteacher Vivian Jurincic, 63, in the early 1980s.

Inmate Francisco Amaro, 36, was charged with Steele's murder.

Amaro, who was serving a sentence for murder and domestic battery in Grant County, was found guilty of murdering Steele by a LaPorte Superior Court jury in January 2020. He was sentenced in October to 45 years in prison.