Billy Richard Bingham Jr. – a son, sibling, Marine, and inmate number 0031427 - grew up in Gaston County. His brother, Jay Bingham, remembers life as a regular family.
"We grew up outside of Charlotte," he said. "We did the normal things that kids do: Go to school, come home, play."
The family was always religious, and to this day, Jay says he remains a man of faith.
"They put us in church at a young age," he said. "We spent many years going to a small church called Carson Memorial Baptist Church in Crowders Mountain."
Growing up around our dad, he was always talking about the Marines. You know, once a Marine, always a Marine. And I think it inspired my brother to go in to the Marines.Jay Bingham
Jay speaks fondly of his brother, saying he had a big heart. "If he would see someone walking down the road out of gas or with car trouble, He would always be there to help other people."
Jay said Billy, the oldest, looked up to their father, who started a TV repair and electronics company. Billy started working for the company as soon as he had a driver's license. Billy followed in his father's footsteps in other ways, too.
"Growing up around our dad, he was always talking about the Marines," he said. "You know, once a Marine, always a Marine. And I think it inspired my brother to go in to the Marines."
Billy didn't see any combat; he was in the Marines shortly after the Vietnam era. After four years in the service, he came back home to Gastonia and worked at his father's company for years.
Tragedy Strikes The Bingham Family
Billy's simple life turned tragic. Already, two of the four Bingham brothers had died. Then, in 2005, Billy got into a disagreement that turned into a fistfight. Billy left, but he came back to look for a cell phone he had dropped during the scuffle. The fight picked up again. It ended when Billy stabbed a man who died in route to the hospital.
Bingham argued that he acted in self-defense, but the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
"My dad spent a lot of time and money trying to get this back into the court as far as the retrial," Jay Bingham said.
In 2007, an appeals court upheld the ruling. Jay said his parents tried to visit the Albemarle Correctional Institute often.
They never said anything about him having COVID-19 and we were never notified that he was ever in the hospital.Jay Bingham, of his brother Billy, who died in prison in August 2020
"For several years, (dad) spent a lot of time on the phone with my brother and going to see him, as well," Jay Bingham said. "And then when he got to where he couldn't go as often, he would schedule and try to see that my brother would get visits from other people."
The family matriarch, Dottie Bingham, died in 2011. And Bill Bingham Sr. passed two years later.
"Lost our brothers, and then our parents. And then it was just he and I," Jay Bingham said, referring to himself and Billy.
When the pandemic hit, Jay couldn't visit his brother in prison. By late July, neither Jay nor his uncle had heard from Billy, which was unusual. They would later learn he had been in the prison system hospital. Then, when they did hear from him, he complained of breathing problems.
"They never said anything about him having COVID-19 and we were never notified that he was ever in the hospital," he said.
Billy died in his prison cell on August 2, 2020. After his death, the prison system didn't acknowledge he had contracted the virus.
"I talked to them. I asked them specifically, I said, 'Did he ever have COVID-19?' They said, 'Oh, no, he didn't have the symptoms when he come back'," Jay Binham said.
Bingham's Cause Of Death Changes
Citing private medical records, the Department of Public Safety does not publicize names of inmates who die of COVID-19. But they do publish aggregate data. Initially, there was no data about a COVID death at Albemarle Correctional for August. On Billy Bingham's death certificate, however, it clearly lists pneumonia and COVID-19 as the cause of death.
"They told me one thing, and yet the death certificate says something else," Jay Bingham said, adding that he grew frustrated trying to communicate with the department. "I think they have an obligation to protect each and every inmate. And to report the information accurately."
On March 4, seven months after Bingham died, the department changed the cause of death for two cases to include COVID-19. It did not name the inmates, but noted that one was a male in his early 60s at Albemarle Correctional who died in early August, a profile that matches Billy Bingham.
Advocates have criticized the prison system for not doing enough to protect inmates from the coronavirus. The NAACP sued the Cooper Administration to release low-level, non violent offenders in order to help prevent them from contracting the virus. Also, advocates have said the vaccination rollout in prisons has lagged.
Lauren Brinkley-Rubenstein, of the UNC Center for Health Equity research, said it muddies the waters when politicians make public health decisions.
"Public health interventions should not have a value-based framework," she said. "So if I'm a public health professional thinking about where vaccinations should go, I should be thinking about where it has the biggest impact."
Bingham was not sentenced to death for the crime he committed. And Brinkley-Rubenstein said a punishment should never factor into how an inmate is treated. That should be decided strictly by public-health guidelines.
"Where are most of the cases?" she asked, rhetorically. "I can't think about deservedness at all because good public health practice can't rely on the circumstances of one person."
In reflecting on his brother, Jay Bingham likes to remember Billy as the young man with the big heart, who would help anyone who needed it.
"I just want him to be remembered as the person he was before he went to prison," he said. "The kind of person he was in life."
