‘DISTURBING’

Oklahoma Inmate at Center of ‘Baby Shark’ Torture Suit Found Dead in Cell

John Basco and three other inmates had alleged that county officials handcuffed them to a wall and forced them to listen to the song on a loop.

An Oklahoma man found unresponsive in a prison cell over the weekend was one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed last year after county jail staffers allegedly tortured inmates by forcing them to listen to “Baby Shark” on a loop for hours in 2019. John Basco, 48, had been booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center on Thursday on a drug trafficking complaint. Despite jail employees’ life-saving efforts, he was pronounced dead just after 4 a.m. on Sunday. A spokesperson for the jail said there was no sign of foul play and that state investigators would look into the possibility of a drug overdose. A lawyer for Basco told The Oklahoman on Monday that he found his client’s death “disturbing,” adding: “I’m really bothered by this. One of the ‘Baby Shark’ victims is conveniently dead within three days of his arrival at the jail. How does that happen? District Attorney David Prater just lost one of his witnesses for the upcoming criminal trial. For me, this one does not pass the smell test.”