A shooting death inside one of Florida’s highest-security federal prisons is raising hard questions that, two months later, still haven’t been answered publicly.
FOX 35 Orlando investigative reporter Marie Edinger says the man who died was 33-year-old federal inmate Dwayne Tottleben, housed at U.S. Penitentiary Coleman I, a high-security men’s prison in Sumter County.
Edinger’s reporting makes one thing clear: the family says the prison has not explained what happened inside those walls, even as official records confirm he was shot and later died at a hospital.
His father, who shares the same name, told Edinger they were close when his son was out.
“You know, he has a 11-year-old sister,” the father said in Edinger’s report, explaining the ripple effect of a death that doesn’t stay confined to a prison fence line.
The father also told Edinger his son still had time left to serve, but it wasn’t life.
“He only had eight and a half years left,” he said, sounding like a parent doing the math and realizing there’s no “after” anymore.
Who Dwayne Tottleben Was And Why He Was There
Edinger reports that the younger Tottleben was serving a 15-year sentence for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.
According to Edinger, the case traces back to an August 2020 traffic stop in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was arrested.
His father did not describe him as a monster or a lost cause.
“He was not a bad person,” the father told Edinger. “He just lost his way.”
That kind of quote lands with force because it’s the most common story in the criminal justice system: family members acknowledging wrongdoing, but still clinging to the idea that punishment is supposed to be the sentence, not whatever else happens when nobody is watching.
And in a federal prison setting, “whatever else happens” can be life or death.
The Shooting And The Timeline
The key dates in Edinger’s report are tight, but the details inside them are not.
The federal inmate database lists Dwayne Tottleben’s death as October 11.
Edinger says the Sumter County Medical Examiner confirmed to FOX 35 that a shooting led to his death and that he was taken to UF Health Leesburg in Lake County, where he later died.
That’s a stark chain of events: prison, gunshot, hospital, death.
Edinger also reports the father says it was the medical examiner – not the prison – who first told him his son had been shot.
“The medical examiner is the one that told me he got shot,” the father said.
Even if the prison later sent a letter, that initial gap matters, because families often learn the truth in fragments, and those fragments don’t always match what institutions say happened.
A Letter, A “Preliminary Cause,” And A Lot Of Unanswered Questions
Edinger reports that the family’s attorney, Robert J. Slama, said the prison did send a notice days after the death.
Slama told Edinger the family received a letter dated October 14, 2025, signed by the warden.
In that letter, Slama said, the “preliminary cause of death” was described as cardiac arrest due to a single gunshot wound to the left shoulder.
That phrase – cardiac arrest due to a gunshot wound – may sound clinical, but it’s also a reminder of how official language can flatten a violent moment into paperwork.
Edinger notes that an official final cause of death has not been released yet.
And the medical examiner’s office told Edinger the death remains under active investigation.
That’s the crux of why this story isn’t going away: confirmation without explanation is gasoline on a fire.
“Enhanced Modified Operations” And The Silence That Followed
In Edinger’s report, the Bureau of Prisons provided a limited statement: USP Coleman I was placed on “Enhanced Modified Operations” on October 10, 2025 – one day before the death date listed in the federal database.
Edinger explains modified operations can mean temporary changes to things like movement, programs, and services.
But when Edinger asked why the prison went into that status and what it had to do with the shooting, she reported that the prison did not answer those questions.
She also said FOX 35 reached out multiple times after receiving the statement.
That’s where the frustration starts to feel justified. If a prison is going to use a special operational label right around the time of a shooting death, it’s reasonable for the public – and especially the family – to ask what happened that triggered it.
The father put it more plainly to Edinger: “I want transparency.”
Policies, “Rare Occurrences,” And Why This Still Feels Unsettled
Edinger’s report points to Bureau of Prisons policy on force, noting that force against inmates is supposed to be a last resort, and deadly force may be used when there’s a reasonable belief an inmate poses an imminent danger of death or serious injury to others.
That policy language might be clear on paper, but it doesn’t answer the basic questions people immediately ask:
Who fired? Was it staff or another inmate? Was this an intervention or an incident? Was anyone else hurt? Was there a disturbance?
And because those details haven’t been publicly released, the vacuum gets filled with suspicion, fear, and anger.
Attorney Robert J. Slama also told Edinger something that stands out: he said it is “a very rare occurrence” for a weapon to be discharged in a prison setting.
That statement cuts two ways.
On one hand, it suggests this isn’t routine and should be treated as serious and unusual.
On the other hand, it makes the silence feel even louder—because if this is rare, why is it so hard to explain what happened?
The Family Wants A Meeting, Not A Press Release
Edinger reports that the family’s attorney wants a meeting with the warden and investigators.
Slama told Edinger, “The next steps are first, we want to have this meeting,” adding that the family wants officials to address their immediate concerns.
That’s not an extreme request. It’s the bare minimum of human decency after a death in custody.
A press statement can be drafted in minutes. A real conversation, with real answers, is what families are usually forced to fight for.
And the father, as Edinger reports, is still stuck in that awful loop: knowing his son was shot, knowing he died, and not knowing the story in between.
Why This Case Hits A Nerve
There’s a reason stories like this take hold fast: prisons operate in darkness by design.
That doesn’t mean they should be lawless or unaccountable. But it does mean that when something goes wrong – especially something fatal—trust can collapse instantly.
If a person dies in state custody, the state owns the responsibility to explain what happened. That’s not a political opinion. It’s the price of having the power to lock people up.
Even if someone believes Dwayne Tottleben deserved a long sentence, that’s still a separate issue from whether he deserved to die from a gunshot wound inside a federal facility.
Edinger’s reporting also highlights a painful reality: when institutions stay quiet, families start to believe the quiet is intentional.
And sometimes it is.
As of the latest details in Marie Edinger’s FOX 35 report, the medical examiner’s office says the case remains under investigation.
Edinger also reported that the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office indicated the investigation was likely being handled at the federal level.
For the family, that probably doesn’t feel reassuring. It can feel like being bounced between doors that won’t open.
For the public, it means the same thing: if answers eventually come, they’ll come slowly.
And until that happens, this death at USP Coleman I sits as a brutal headline with a blank space where the most important paragraph should be.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
