Broken locks at Hays State Prison in Chattooga County have led to a Federal lawsuit by the mother of a man that was murdered at the facility.

The mother contends that prison officials knew of the faulty locks and did nothing about them which resulted in the murder of her son, Damion McClain.

McClain was found beaten to death in December 2012 at Hays Prison.

State auditors had reportedly warned the prison about the faulty locks as far back as 2008.

The state, by its own account, has spent over a million dollars upgrading the locks.

The suit quotes an officer’s log entry on the night of McClain’s death stating that inmates had freely slipped out of their cells.

It alleges that a 15-percent vacancy left guards too short staffed to patrol some parts of the prison.

The state has 21 days to respond to the lawsuit filed in Federal Court last Wednesday.

(AM 1180)