MISSOULA – The warden of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge submitted a letter of resignation last week, the Department of Corrections confirmed after a query by the Missoulian.
Corrections spokesperson Carolynn Bright said Wednesday that Lynn Guyer submitted his resignation on July 16, after nearly two years on the job.
Bright did not say when Guyer’s last day was or why he resigned.
The department will begin recruiting for a new warden “as soon as possible,” Bright wrote in an email to the Missoulian.
Guyer began working as the warden of the state men’s prison in October 2018. He had retired from the prison system in Idaho in May 2016 after 30 years.
The Missoulian recently learned that the Department of Corrections had quietly decided 10 months ago to no longer notify the public when people died in the agency’s custody.
Sixteen of the 20 deaths involved prison inmates while the other four were in prerelease or treatment facilities, the newspaper found. Two died by suicide.
The review found 15 of the 20 deaths happened this year, a number higher than 2018 and 2019 combined, authorities said.