Family Seeks Answers After “Sizzla’s” Sudden Death In Prison

by Thomas Breen and Dereen Shirnekhi

Pauline Jackson Mchayle received a call Sunday afternoon about her son Craig Whyte, a 45-year-old New Havener who was incarcerated at Osborn Correctional Institution.

“They said he had a medical emergency,” she recalled, and that he had been taken from prison to the hospital.

State police later informed her that her eldest son — a roofer by trade, a devoted sibling, a lover of reggae music, and a proud Jamaican immigrant known to friends and family as “Sizzla” — had died.

“I can’t cope, because I can’t understand what is going on,” Jackson Mchayle said Monday evening. “I’m not getting any information about what happened.”

The state Department of Correction (DOC) announced Whyte’s death in a Monday morning press release.

That press release states that a correction officer “conducting a regular tour” found Whyte unresponsive in his cell at around 1:30 p.m. Responding staff and paramedics tried to save his life, including in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. Whyte was pronounced dead by a hospital physician at 2:31 p.m.

State police and the Department of Correction Security Division are now investigating Whyte’s death — the fifth death of an incarcerated person in DOC custody since February.

Jackson Mchayle and three of Whyte’s siblings — Chantal Beckford, Latoya Thomas, and Garvey Grant — told the Independent in a group interview Monday evening that they are desperate for answers as to what led to Whyte’s death.

They said that he was in good health, regularly spoke with family members over the phone, and seemed eager to finish his prison sentence and return to life in New Haven.

“We talked to him and we prayed over the phone with him,” Beckford said about a recent phone call she and her husband had with Whyte. “He was very encouraged. He was focused on getting out.”

Beckford said that Whyte had told her he had only six months left in his prison sentence. Grant said he was supposed to get out in either August or October. Both expressed surprise that the DOC’s press release Monday said that Whyte was serving a 33-month prison sentence. (Monday’s DOC press release states that Whyte was in prison for a threatening conviction. Online court records show that Whyte received an 11-month prison sentence in October 2024 for threatening. His most recent criminal conviction was for first-degree escape and conveying an unauthorized item into an institution. He was arrested on those charges in October 2025; he was sentenced to one year in jail, suspended after seven months, on Feb. 18 of this year.)

“He was so healthy. This was not supposed to happen,” Thomas said through tears Monday. “He was supposed to come home.”

Whyte’s mom and siblings all described him as “a very positive person, a very family person,” as Grant put it.

Jackson Mchayle said that her family emigrated to New Haven from their home country of Jamaica in 2000.

Grant said his brother had a lifelong love of reggae music, with Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” a favorite song. “He loves life. He was genuine. He was very positive and encouraging,” Beckford said. “He was our older brother. He loved his nephews.” They said that Whyte was well known in Greater New Haven’s Jamaican community. “Everybody knows Sizzla,” Grant said.

His family said that Whyte worked as a roofer. They sent along a photo of him sitting in front of a lawn sign bearing the title of a roofing and general construction business called Sizzla On The Roof LLC. “He was excellent at what he did,” Beckford said.

Whyte’s family members said that Whyte was not married, and that he had one daughter who predeceased him.

Ken Krayeske, a New Haven-based civil rights attorney who was once recommended to serve as the independent ombudsman for the state DOC, is now representing Whyte’s family as they try to figure out what happened to their loved one.

Krayeske said that, first, he’s going to help Whyte’s family members visit Whyte while his body is in the custody of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Then they’ll work to open an estate for Whyte and try to collect as much information as they can.

Krayeske said he doesn’t expect to receive any information from the state DOC anytime soon. “We understand the DOC has no interest in transparency,” Krayeske said. “The DOC is going to do everything it can to hide the truth. We’ll undertake our own investigation.” Generally, he said, they have a year to decide whether or not to file a lawsuit against the DOC regarding Whyte’s death.

Whyte was a roofer by trade. Credit: Contributed photo

See below for an earlier version of this article, which was first published at 3:36 p.m.

New Havener Dies In Prison

A 45-year-old New Havener named Craig Whyte died Sunday after a correction officer found him unconscious in his prison cell, leading Osborn Correctional Facility to be placed on lockdown as state police investigate.

The state Department of Correction (DOC) published a press release on Monday announcing Whyte’s death.

That press release states that Whyte was serving a 33-month sentence for threatening. Online court records show that Whyte’s most recent criminal conviction was for first-degree escape and conveying an unauthorized item into an institution. He was arrested on those charges in October 2025; he was sentenced to one year in jail, suspended after seven months, on Feb. 18 of this year.

According to Monday’s press release, a correction officer “conducting a regular tour” found Whyte unconscious in his cell at Osborn, located in Somers, at around 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Staff initiated “emergency and life-saving measures,” and paramedics arrived on-scene and continued to try to revive Whyte while transporting him to a hospital.

Whyte was pronounced dead at the hospital at 2:31 p.m. on Sunday.

Osborn has been placed on lockdown. According to DOC Public Information Officer Andrius Banevicius, Osborn’s lockdown will be lifted by 5 p.m. on Monday.

State police and the Department of Correction Security Division are investigating Whyte’s death. The exact cause of death will be determined by the State Medical Examiner’s Office.

Whyte is the fifth incarcerated person to die in state custody since February whose death is considered untimely or under investigation, CT News Junkie reported. The other men who died have been identified as Clemente Giusto Clemente, 50, at Garner Correctional Institution; Andrey Desmond, 32, also at Garner; Noe Taveras, 40, at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution; and Christopher Root, 29, also at MacDougall-Walker.

Local civil rights attorney Ken Krayeske, who was once recommended to serve as the independent ombudsman for the state DOC, said he hadn’t yet heard about Whyte’s death on Monday afternoon.

Krayeske said he had been in court Monday morning for a separate case against the DOC. Krayeske was representing the family of Tyler Cole, who died in July 2025 of an overdose from a combination of methadone and antipsychotic drugs he was prescribed while in custody at Garner.

“The DOC has a much higher rate of deaths than the normal population, and we have been incarcerating people for all of human history,” said Krayeske in a phone interview. “So how come at this point in the twenty-first century, the State of Connecticut is not able to provide a more humane way to cage people?”