Trial begins for ex-Waupun nurse in inmate death case

Listen to this article

A court trial is underway for a former Waupun Correctional Institution nurse accused of abusing a prisoner by not properly checking his health, despite multiple concerns, before he died of a rare stroke in October 2023.

Gwendolyn Vick, 53, of Burnett, is on trial for two charges: abuse of residents of penal facilities, a felony; and violating the laws of state institution in connection, a misdemeanor. She is one of three Waupun staffers charged in connection with the death of 24-year-old Cameron Williams.

Vick’s trial started Monday. It is scheduled for two weeks, but attorneys estimate it may likely wrap up by Friday.

Unlike a jury trial, where evidence is presented to a jury, a court trial involves evidence presented to a judge. Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Brian Pfitzinger will determine the verdict after hearing all the evidence.

Prosecutors began the trial by calling several former Waupun Correctional Institution staff to the witness stand. Among them were former correctional officers who testified about their interactions with Williams, and a former correctional captain who testified about institution policies – like when and how staff can conduct cell entries.

Vick’s trial comes nearly a full two years after she was criminally charged, alongside a handful of other Waupun Correctional Institution staff members, following investigations by the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office into the deaths of Williams and another prisoner, 62-year-old Donald Maier, who died of probable malnutrition and dehydration in February 2024 after staff intermittently shut off his water and failed to document his missed meals.

Of a total of nine Waupun staffers charged between the two prisoner deaths, two have had criminal charges dismissed, while three have pleaded down from felonies to lesser misdemeanors.

Vick is the first to have a trial. She would be the first of the former staffers to be convicted of a felony, if Pfitzinger finds her guilty.

For about a week before his death, while housed in a solitary cell at Waupun Correctional Institution’s restrictive housing unit, Cameron Williams was having stomachaches and vomited blood, another prisoner who knew Williams and his family previously told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Former correctional officer witnesses testified May 11 that Williams had reported stomach and chest pain on Oct. 28 and 29, 2023. One of them, Alicia Goehl, testified that around 3:20 p.m. Oct. 29, while passing out medications, she peeked into the window of Williams’ cell and saw he appeared to have labored breathing, as if he had “just got done running a marathon.”

Goehl said she informed the restrictive housing unit sergeant on duty at the time, Tanner Leopold, then moved on to her other duties. At the end of her shift, she informed the next correctional officer that Williams “seemed off.”

According to a criminal complaint, Leopold contacted the on-duty nurse around 5:15 p.m. Oct. 29, about how Williams was not responding to security staff. That nurse, who had recently seen Williams for his health concerns, went to Williams’ cell and saw that he was breathing but not responding, so she agreed that a cell entry should be conducted.

However, because it was the end of her shift and Leopold said it would be “a little bit” before staff would be able to enter Williams’ cell, the nurse decided to leave but notify the nurse coming in to take her place – Vick.

The complaint says Vick spoke to Leopold at the start of her shift and suggested they wait longer to conduct a cell entry, because Williams had a history of lying on the floor and refusing to get up.

No cell entry was conducted, and on the morning of Oct. 30, 2023, staff found Williams dead in his cell.

The Dodge County Medical Examiner ruled Williams’ death a stroke caused by or multiple blood clots in his brain.

During testimony of Goehl and another former correctional officer, Nathaniel Silva, prosecutors played body camera footage from the officers’ interactions with Williams and outside his cell door.

One video from Oct. 28 from Silva’s body camera showed Silva and another correctional officer escort Williams to the prison nurse’s office for a five-minute health check-up on his vitals.

On the way back to Williams’ cell, Williams fell to the ground and stated that he did not feel well. Silva asked Williams, “You good?” and helped him up.

In court, Silva said he did not interpret Williams’ fall as a severe health concern.

“I believe that he tripped on his own feet,” Silva testified. Additionally, he said, sometimes prisoners stop walking and use their “dead weight” to delay returning to their cell.

“He looked fine to me. I mean, he looked like he was just not feeling too well,” Silva said.

Like Silva, Goehl’s time on the witness stand May 11 also involved body camera video. Goehl was assigned to go cell to cell in Williams’ area of the restrictive housing unit on Oct. 28 and 29, 2023, to pass out medication, meals and items like toilet paper and books at different times.

In court, prosecutors played footage from Goehl’s body camera during six stops she had at Williams’ cell door Oct. 29.

She said during that time, he rarely moved from his mattress, which he had placed on the floor of the cell. On one occasion, he came to the front to throw his trash out the trap door.

On a couple occasions, Goehl said Williams replied to questions about if he wanted medication or food, saying “no.” Other times, she said, it was difficult to hear if he replied at all, due to yelling and banging on cell walls by nearby prisoners, which she said is common in the restrictive housing unit. In those instances, she looked inside the cell to ensure she could see he was breathing – something she said staff were taught to do.

While nine Waupun staffers were criminally charged in connection with Williams’ and Maier’s death, many more were let go from their jobs at the prison in connection with investigations into the Waupun Correctional Institution. Williams and Maier were among seven prisoners who died at the maximum-security prison in a span of about two years, and in 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a probe into a suspected smuggling ring at Waupun. Long-standing staffing shortages also led several employed in Wisconsin’s prisons to warn of dangers associated with too few correctional employees.

Vick’s attorney, Wolter, like other attorneys for the former Waupun Correctional employees who went through or are currently going through the legal system, aim to prove that the issues at Waupun Correctional Institution are bigger than any one person’s fault.

In court May 11, Silva testified he was fired from Waupun Correctional Institution for not remembering to turn his body camera on during every interaction with prisoners.

Goehl testified the reason she was given for her job termination was that she had falsely signed off as completing cell rounds that she did not complete.

“At that time, I was encouraged by senior staff and my superiors to sign for rounds. The round sheets were important to be filled out entirely,” she said. “At that time, I was under the assumption someone else was covering if I was filling in for a different area – and they were not.”

At the time of Williams’ death, she was new to the job, just about one month out from her on-the-job training. She said she was fired just shy of her one-year anniversary on the job.

Wrongfully initialed cell check rounds were evidence that led to criminal charges of other former staffers. Sarah Ransbottom, a former Waupun correctional officer, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor violating the laws of a state institution for marking her initials, or allowing her initials to be marked, on two rounds of cell checks that she did not complete on the floor where Maier died.

Jeramie Chalker, a former correctional sergeant, was also charged in connection with Maier’s death for signing off on two cell rounds that he did not complete. However, the case against him was dropped in April 2025 after prosecutors determined Chalker was merely following orders to fill out the rounds, despite not completing them.

It’s a similar theme that both prosecutors and defense attorneys have described in court proceedings for other former employees: that Waupun Correctional Institution staff were overworked and undertrained on many policies and procedures.

Hepp, the former warden, said so himself; the criminal complaint for Maier’s death quotes Hepp as stating that an apathetic attitude of “just get by” by staff in the restrictive housing unit “is the inevitable outcome of a long-term staffing deficit in this type of environment.”

At Hepp’s plea and sentencing hearing, during which the former warden was sentenced to a $500 fine for pleading to misdemeanor violating the laws of a state institution, Dodge County Circuit Court Judge Martin De Vries said under Hepp’s leadership, Waupun Correctional Institution staff failed to follow policies and procedures related to missed meals, water restrictions, medication refusals and round checks.