ASHEVILLE - A man who confessed to police that he raped and killed an Asheville woman was found unresponsive in his jail cell and is now dead.
Douglas Michael Stroupe, 22, of Asheville was found in his cell just after 1 p.m. Aug. 24 and taken to Mission Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to a news release from the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is investigating Stroupe's death.
Stroup was in jail on charges of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and first-degree forcible rape. He came under investigation on Nov. 20, 2025, after Asheville police officers went to a home on Warren Avenue, where a man said he'd been assaulted with a pipe, according to search warrant documents
filed Dec. 5 by Detective Jonathan McCain. Witnesses in the home identified Stroupe as the assailant, and officers encountered Stroupe nearby. When Stroupe was detained, he "spontaneously" told an officer that he had raped and stabbed a woman at a white house with a rooster in the yard, McCain wrote.
Officers went to the home and found Jennifer Gerard, 45, dead from apparently knife wounds.
This article will be updated.
Kara Fohner is the Public Safety Reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times. Email her at kfohner@usatodayco.com or call her at 980-241-8671.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville inmate charged with murder dies in jail cell
