Inmate Kills Himself As A Fax Granting His Freedom Fails To Go Through

West Virginia Gazette- An initial investigation into the death of an inmate at the South Central Regional Jail last week indicates the man died by suicide, a spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety said Tuesday.

Joshua Lee Miles, 36, of Cross Lanes, was found unresponsive in his cell during the early hours of April 13, DMAPS spokesman Lawrence Messina said. 

Miles actually wasn’t supposed to still be in jail on April 13, as a Kanawha County magistrate had tried to send an order to the jail for his release the morning of April 12.

Kanawha Magistrate Jack Pauley signed and attempted to fax an order to South Central at 9:40 a.m., April 12. The fax, though, didn’t go through, according to a “communication result report” printed through the fax machine. The report, which was printed at 10:14 a.m., notes that the one-page release order was not sent. The report was placed in Miles’ case file in Kanawha Magistrate Court.

Lotta ballyhoo and consternation flying around Barstool HQ yesterday so I thought I’d get back to basics. Just bringing you a nice, warm, cup-of-tea story to ease you into your day. How about this poor inmate? Victim of a fax error. Some of you youngsters won’t know what that means, but a fax machine is something you use when you’re stranded at sea in a sinking sailboat. Or if you’re on Air Force 1 and the plane has been taken over by Russian terrorists and you need to get a message to the White House. They work about 40% of the time and frankly, you have a better chance of getting your information to the recipient if you just fold the paper into an airplane and toss it out the window. It is impossible to understand how, in 2017, with our vape pens and Pornhub apps, these fax machines still exist. But they do, and they’re leading to unnecessary inmate suicides.

The guy did still beat his girlfriend though… Fax machine: not the hero we deserve, but the one we need right now.

PS- I know it’s a copier from that great scene in Office Space. But many fax machines exist within copiers. They’re evil, conjoined twins that ruin lives with their cryptic error notifications and perpetual paper jams.