An Indiana prisoner at the Pendleton Correctional Facility has been found dead from a possible drug overdose, the Indiana Department of Correction said, in the second such case in less than a week and the third untimely death of an inmate there in 18 days. After Keith Lausterer, 40, was found unresponsive in his bed Sunday, prison staff tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m.

The Madison County Coroner's Office, Indiana State Police and Pendelton's Internal Affairs are investigating the death. Lausterer was convicted of murder in Floyd County on Feb. 26, 2003, and was sentenced to 65 years. His earliest projected release date was Aug. 12, 2034.

Another Pendleton inmate, Nyeusi McCreary, 29, was found dead in his cell on the morning of Feb. 6, and the department said it also was treating his death as a possible drug overdose. McCreary had been sentenced to prison in 2004 out of Grant County on drug and battery convictions. And a third Pendleton inmate, rape convict Jerome Barker, apparently hung himself Jan. 26 in one of three suicides among state prisoners in the span of 17 days.

"Recent inmate deaths have caused a great concern for the Department of Correction," Commissioner J. David Donahue said in a statement. "It is most unfortunate for the offender population and staff morale."