WEST LIBERTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — Nearly two and a half months after 48-year-old Marvin Knuckles fell to his death down an icy, snow-covered cliff, a 6-foot fence has been installed around the area.
Knuckles was on a special work detail shoveling snow at 1 a.m. on Jan. 27 when he fell.
As LEX 18 reported last week, a Critical Incident Response Team under the Department of Corrections and Justice and Public Safety Cabinet investigated the area. The team found a gap in a guard rail and noted there was no camera, no light, and no signage warning of the dangerous drop-off. They recommended installing the 6-foot fence and warning signs of a dangerous slope.
LEX 18 Investigates
State report details inmate's fatal cliff fall at EKCC, changes coming
Knuckles' sister, Rita Alexander, said her family received the call about his death from a prison chaplain. She recently saw the newly installed fence.
"I saw it this morning. When I've seen it, it's like somebody just punched me in the gut," she said.
Alexander said she has been anything but silent since her brother's death.
"I said it took my brother died to get something done, to get a fence put up, and... they put it up fast," she told LEX 18.
Alexander noted that her brother's orange toboggan is still lying on the cliff where he fell.
"As long as we live on earth, we got to live with the torment in our heart of him having to die in the way that he did. And then if you look up close on that picture, my brother's toboggan is still laying on that cliff that he had on when he fell," she said.
"You know I think about... the fear and the pain and the hurt that he went through," Alexander added.
While Alexander is glad the steep hillside is now secured to protect other inmates and employees, she said the safety measure came at too high a cost.
"Yes, I, thank God that they, that they put that fence up to protect other people, employees or prisoners, but it shouldn't have had to take my brother to die to get it done," she said.
