Man killed his son, sentenced to death after 26 years, died in prison.

John Michael Ward, a 58-year-old man, was found dead in his prison cell at the Holman Correctional Facility on Tuesday night. He had been on death row for 26 years and four months after being sentenced by a jury in Baldwin County for the smothering death of his four-month-old son, Nicholas Allen Ward, in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, USA.

According to court records, Ward killed his son in January 1997 and when Nicholas was taken to a hospital by Ward and his mother, he was not breathing, had no pulse and was cold to touch. The doctors found abrasions on his scalp, nose and mouth, as well as blood in his ears and bruises on his neck and chest. There was also stool in his nappy and his right arm had suffered a deformity with crusty material under some of his nails. This prompted the Baldwin County Sheriff Office to launch an investigation and Ward was ultimately convicted for causing Nicholas’s death and sentenced to death.

The Alabama Department of Corrections has confirmed that a doctor declared Ward dead on Wednesday and an autopsy will be carried out to determine what happened. Ward's death comes shortly after a man who gave a six-year-old a piggyback ride before bludgeoning her to death left some haunting final words in a letter ahead of his execution.

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