Sons Of Oklahoma County Jail Inmate Suspect Foul Play In His Death

An Oklahoma County jail inmate's death is under investigation, and his sons think it was no accident.

Ricky Windle, 53, was found unresponsive in his cell Saturday and died early Sunday in a local hospital.

The Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office is investigating this as a homicide, as they do all inmate deaths to ensure no stone is left unturned.

You listen to phone calls. You look at video, see if anybody visited the cell, find out what happened in the days and weeks leading up to this,” sheriff's office spokesman Mark Opgrande said.

Windle's children, however, think this was a targeted attack.

“He was calling us and telling us he was scared, but he wouldn’t tell us exactly what happened as far as him being assaulted because part of being in there, when you speak out about things that happen to you, they label you as a snitch, so it makes you a bigger target,” said son Chris Esker.

Windle was convicted of attempted rape, domestic abuse and indecent exposure in 2003. He was jailed September 2016 for failing to register as a sex offender when he moved to Del City.

His sons Chris Esker and Corey Windle told News 9 he spent the first few months in general population, but the sheriff's office moved him to a single-person cell Jan. 10. Investigators have not revealed why the switch was made, but three days later, Windle was rushed to the hospital.

“He had told me that he got jumped and that he had a collapsed lung and he had a fractured skull, but he was talking like he was just fine,” said son Corey Windle.

Sheriff's investigators are now reviewing what led up to those previous injuries, and to find out what happened Saturday inside Windle’s cell in the medical unit.

“Up in that area his cell would have been checked numerous times a day and then there is a pod monitor in there who watches all the cells, so if somebody saw somebody go in there, they would’ve been able to see it,” Opgrande said.

A week earlier, one of Windle's sons received an ominous phone call from his father's telephone account at the jail.

It was another inmate on the other end of the phone basically stating that this is what happens when you’re a sex offender in Oklahoma County, and he hung up in my face,” Esker said

That call may be one more possible clue in Windle's unexplained death.

“Any phone call that’s made off his account is recorded and logged,” said Opgrande. “We can go back and look and listen to everything that’s been said, everything that’s been called, every person that called.”

The medical examiner is still determining Windle's cause of death.

Once the sheriff's office completes its investigation, detectives will turn it over to the OSBI.