According to a news release, Jeffrey Haptonstall was receiving services in a state facility since Jan. 22, 2020, but recently had been taken to a Lincoln hospital to receive treatment for a medical condition. He later died there.

A Lincoln judge in November found Haptonstall competent for trial but ordered that he remain at the Lincoln Regional Center, where he had been committed after first being found not competent over the summer.

Haptonstall was facing charges of first-degree sexual assault of a child and a second felony sex crime and was facing a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years and up to life in prison if he was convicted.

Lincoln police arrested Haptonstall on April 24, 2019, three weeks after the girl told someone at school about what she said he did to her the previous year.