Face was 'sunken in:' inmate's ordeal and homicide at Miami CF described

FORT WAYNE, Ind. --Arthur Lee Booker was shocked when his brother’s body was released from the Saguaro Forensic facility in Fishers.

It was no shock that Shawn Booker’s death at the prison on April 4, inside cell 115, was ruled a homicide. 

Social media blew up when inmates talked to loved ones on the outside, detailing the stabbing death of Booker, basically held captive inside his cell while another inmate, known to be extremely violent, stabbed him more than 30 times, according to what the coroner told Arthur.

Shawn Booker, beloved by his family and friends, was killed at the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill on April 4. The prison has still not contacted the family.

Shortly afterwards, The Probable Cause received confirmation from The Indiana Department of Correction that he’d died.

The delayed return of Booker’s body to his family here in Fort Wayne made a closed casket necessary, Arthur said.

But that wasn’t all.

“His face was sunken in because they weren’t feeding him. He had not ate,” Arthur said. 

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Normally Shawn had a “big fat round face,” but when he was brought home, “you could see his cheekbones. They don’t feed them people down there.”

Arthur said there were “rumors” that the guards knew this inmate “was a violent lifer. The Miami Correctional Facility played the role of judge, jury and executioner. They put him in with a killer.”

Miami CF is the state's largest prison, housing 3,188 inmates at total capacity and three levels of security. The state also created a 1,000 bed ICE detention center there for the federal government.

That killer has yet to be identified. Typically, the Indiana State Police take over an investigation like this and turn over their findings to the county prosecutor, in this case, Miami County.

Shawn had severe mental health issues and was a continuing patient at Parkview Behavioral Health, all the more reason that he believes Shawn was well known to police and should have never been arrested on Oct. 25. 

Having been charged with domestic battery, he was slapped with a probation violation and shipped off to prison.

Arthur said he got to Miami CF at the end of 2025 or early 2026.

Imprisonment brought isolation. “They wouldn’t let us talk to him. He had no contacts at all and hadn’t been given his medication,” a typical complaint from families about the Indiana prison medical system.

His girlfriend of 15 years with whom he had four children “wrote several letters and he didn’t write back. He was probably off his meds,” Arthur said.

As far as Arthur knows, his younger brother, 50, had no tablet, the device that allows prisoners to text and talk to family. “I hadn’t talked to my brother since that day before he got arrested when I gave him $20 to buy cigarettes.”

Shawn Booker was buried last Friday. Arthur Booker says he has not heard from the prison.

“You kill my brother and you still can’t talk to me?"

Shawn’s death is number four at Miami, if you count the November homicide of Trinidad Ramirez, an inmate at the 1000-bed ICE detention center carved out of the 3,188 bed Miami facility this year, and another alleged homicide by the same inmate who killed Shawn Booker.

The Probable Cause will keep this story updated.