The North Carolina Department of Public Safety says its Division of Adult Correction has reached a $2.5 million settlement with the estate of a man with mental illness who died of thirst after being held in solitary confinement for 35 days. A statement issued July 20 announced the agreement with the estate of Michael Anthony Kerr.Records show the 54-year-old inmate was twice cited for violations by prison staff for flooding his cell weeks before his death. Kerr was found unresponsive in the back of a prison van after being driven three hours from the Alexander Correctional Institution in Taylorsville to a mental hospital at Raleigh’s Central Prison.