9 October 2023
A 43-year-old man serving a life sentence for the murder of his girlfriend’s toddler in Maplewood is the suspect in the death of a fellow inmate of the Lino Lake prison, the Minnesota Department of Corrections said Monday.
Steven Paul Patchen, 63, was found unresponsive in his cell at 10:30 a.m. Thursday and pronounced dead about an hour later. Patchen was serving a 19½ year sentence after being convicted of three counts of criminal sexual conduct in Anoka County in 2018.
The Department of Corrections identified Kyle John Kelbel as the suspect Monday. Kelbel was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001 in the death of 2-year-old Kailyn Montgomery, his girlfriend’s daughter. The toddler died of multiple abdominal injuries. An autopsy also showed numerous bruises and scrapes on Kailyn’s scalp, face, torso, arms and legs.
Kelbel has been transferred to the Oak Park Heights prison, the DOC’s highest security facility.
Patchen was in prison after he was charged in 2017 with sexually abusing juvenile relatives over an extended period of time.
The circumstances of last week’s suspected homicide in the Lino Lakes prison remain under investigation.
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