Prosecutor Charged in Sex Sting Commits Suicide
A federal prosecutor accused of traveling to Detroit to have sex with a 5-year-old girl has committed suicide in prison.
J. D. Roy Atchison, a U.S. attorney in Pensacola, killed himself on Friday.
He was in a special housing unit for inmates who are segregated for a variety of reasons, including the risk of suicide, the Detroit News reports. That newspaper and the Detroit Free Press reported that he was alone in his cell at the Milan, Mich., prison when he died. However, the New York Times quoted Atchison’s lawyer as saying he may have killed himself in the shower, where there are cameras as an inmate enters but not in the shower area.
Atchison was charged in an online sex sting in which a detective posing as a mother offered sex with her daughter. He was carrying a Dora the Explorer doll and petroleum jelly when he was arrested.
Atchison had tried to commit suicide in jail once before, on Sept. 20, but an inmate warned deputies that he was tying a sheet around his neck. He was transferred to the prison from the county jail after the suicide attempt.
