CLARINDA, Iowa – Official with the Iowa Department of Corrections, today (Friday), reported 66-year-old Joseph Charles Pray, who was serving a 45-year maximum term for the crimes of sex abuse in the 2nd and 3rd degrees out of Polk County, died from natural causes Wednesday afternoon, December 27, 2023. Pray died at Bryans East Hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska where he had been housed due to chronic illness.

His sentence began on May 24, 2021.