LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- An inmate at Louisville Metro Corrections died Monday night, just hours after he was convicted by a jury of killing his wife in July 2018.

In a written statement, Louisville Metro Corrections says that at about 7 p.m. Monday, officers found 39-year-old Bashar Ghazawi unconscious in the jail. He was transported to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly before 8 a.m.

"Metro Corrections suspects that this death is related to a drug overdose," the statement reads. 

Ghazawi had been convicted of murder by a Jefferson County Circuit Court jury just hours earlier, on Monday.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Office Lt. Col. Carl Yates said Ghazawi was supposed to be brought over to the courthouse for sentencing Tuesday morning. Yates said his family was in the courtroom when they learned of his death. 

Daniel Johnson, the president of the Metro Corrections FOP, said other inmates did not alert jail officials or utilize Narcan available in the dorm. It wasn't until officers discovered Ghazawi that EMS was called and efforts to revive him began, according to Johnson. 

Col. Jerry Collins, the director of Louisville Metro Corrections, issued a statement Tuesday morning saying he was "disgusted that it seems another person has lost his life because of those who seek to profit by smuggling these dangerous substances into the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections.

"We will continue to work hard every day to disrupt the drug trafficking that plagues our community and our jail."

The Louisville Metro Police Department is investigating the death. 

Defense attorney Rob Eggert, who represented Ghazawi, said that while prosecutors disagree, he believes his client was mentally ill and had attempted suicide three times previously. 

"My thoughts are with his family," Eggert said. 

In a recently released report, an outside consultant hired to investigate Louisville's jail calls the facility obsolete, poorly designed, and riddled with "poor practices."

The city of Louisville hired the expert to investigate the jail after a string of deaths over the past year.

Gary Raney, the president of GAR, Inc. Justice Consulting, deemed the jail "obsolete and poorly designed," and claimed that has "contributed to poor practices by staff."

During his time on site, he said he did not find any cells that were "suicide resistant."

"Bars, bunks and fixtures in cells facilitate suicide attempts," Raney said.

Twelve inmates have died inside Louisville Metro Corrections since November 2021, some by suicide, and some in overdoses. The jail does not track suicides, suicide attempts, or uses of force, according to the consulting firm.

New body scanners were installed in the jail not long after Collins took over as the jail's director. In June, Collins said he planned to install two additional body scanners and 197 more security cameras.

Raney said while the new body scanners should reduce contraband coming in from outside of the jail, it will "likely have little impact on the internal flow of contraband between inmates and staff."

"There is a common belief in the LMDC that some contraband is attributable to corrupt staff," Raney wrote in the report. "Currently, staff are supposed to have transparent bags/backpacks but the policy is widely ignored."

Inmates who work inside the facility also have "constant, unsupervised access," according to the report.

"This is unheard of in other jails," Raney said.

The murder Ghazawi was convicted of took place on July 8, 2018, in the 4100 block of Lambert Avenue, off Bardstown Road, near Appliance Park. That's where police found Ghazawi, and his wife, Noor Ghazawi. She was 32. 

According to an arrest report, a witness told officers he saw Ghazawi shoot the woman several times before shooting himself. Noor Ghazawi died as a result of her injuries.

Bashar Ghazawi was taken to University Hospital with critical injuries, but survived. He was then taken into custody and charged with murder.

He was found guilty of count murder, escape, fleeing and evading police, criminal mischief and resisting arrest.

This story may be updated. 

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