Jul 8, 2026, 6:04 PM CT
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On Tuesday (July 7) morning, at approximately 5:10 AM, a jail deputy in the Columbia County Jail was conducting a routine wellbeing check of inmates when they discovered an inmate who was unresponsive while lying in bed in his cell. The jail deputy immediately recognized that the inmate was in medical distress and requested assistance. The jail deputy moved the inmate to the floor and determined that he was not breathing and did not have a pulse. Additional jail deputies responded to assist, and Portage EMS was requested. Jail deputies immediately began life saving efforts by initiating CPR. Portage EMS arrived and continued attempting to resuscitate the inmate, but those efforts were unsuccessful, and the inmate was determined to be deceased.
The inmate, a 58-year-old male, was being held in the Columbia County Jail for approximately 2 months on felony bond for an OWI 12th offense and a State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections hold. The inmate was housed in a cell with no cellmate. With the inmate being confined to the Columbia County Jail at the time of his death, a Marquette County Sheriff’s Office Detective was requested to oversee this investigation. The preliminary investigation indicates the inmate suffered a medical event while asleep in his bed.Columbia County jail deputies do have body worn cameras which were activated during the check of the inmates. The jail deputies are fully cooperating with the investigation.
Adam Hess has been involved in radio broadcasting since 1990, with many of those years spent on the air at WRCO FM in Richland Center. Currently, Adam hosts the Weekend Wake-up and Prime Mover Saturdays on WRCO FM, jumps in and helps out with news duties, handles Social Media duties for WRCO and WRCE, and is the Director of Technology at a Southwest Wisconsin School District. Reach him at adam.hess@civicmedia.us.
Tim Thiede is a Muscoda native who earned a degree in Radio/TV/Film from UW-Oshkosh where he decided to return to school as a non-traditional student. Since graduating in 2013 Tim has been working in radio previously in Reedsburg before being hired at WRCO in 2021. Besides being an on-air personality Tim also assists in the news department, engineers sports broadcasts and helps out wherever needed.
