New in The Nation: How Prison Neglect Killed Alex Kuhnhausen

He reported minor symptoms to his jailers. Two weeks later, he was dead.

Kevin Light-Roth and I reported on the tragic and preventable death of Alex Kuhnhausen. Below is an excerpt. You can read the full story in The Nation. Kevin is an independent journalist incarcerated in Washington State.

On April 21, 2024, Katie Kuhnhausen woke before dawn. She showered in the dark, dressed quickly, and jammed the day’s provisions into a backpack—snacks, a hairbrush, bottled water, lipstick. She planned to do her makeup in the car. The drive from her home in Vancouver to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla took about four hours, and she was running behind.

“I was feeling really nervous,” says Katie. “I hadn’t heard from my husband in eight days at that point.”

Katie’s husband, Alex Kuhnhausen, had fallen ill some weeks earlier. There was no formal diagnosis, but he presented alarming symptoms. On April 7, he told prison medical staff he had been coughing and sneezing up blood for three days and sleeping for most of the day for the past week, according to Department of Correction records reviewed by The Nation.

Read the full story at The Nation.