Death certificates for two inmates whose bodies were discovered after a March 2 riot at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution suggest they met violent ends.
Damon Fitzgerald and Michael Galindo both had multiple sharp and blunt force injuries, according to a press release from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.
Spokeswoman Dawn-Renee Smith said Galindo's death certificate lists smoke inhalation as the main cause, with other wounds contributing.
Fitzgerald's death certificate lists burn injuries and strangulation as contributing to his death.
Both of the deaths were determined to be homicides. But no one yet has been charged.
Smith said the criminal investigation is ongoing.
Corrections Director Scott Frakes extended his sympathy to the inmates' families.
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"This loss of life reminds us of the dangerousness of prison and the enormous responsibility we have to keep people safe," he said.
Fitzgerald, 39, was serving 310 to 470 years for back-to-back rapes in Omaha in two weeks in 2005.
Galindo, 31, was serving 12 to 21 years, most of it for a 2014 robbery at a Git N Split store in Scottsbluff.
Within the past two years, five inmates have been killed at the Tecumseh prison, two in a May 2015 riot, two on March 2 and one on April 15, who was allegedly strangled by his cellmate.
The violent incident March 2 prompted the ACLU of Nebraska to call on Gov. Pete Ricketts to declare an emergency in the state's prisons and to say it's a matter of when, not if, they will pursue a lawsuit to force the state to address constitutional violations and the rights of individual inmates.
Omaha Sen. Bob Krist also has called for a reopening of a special legislative investigative committee to look into the continued problems at the prisons.