HONOLULU -- Hawaii prison officials plan to open an investigation into the death of a Hawaii woman inmate in Kentucky.

Some inmates said Sarah Ah Mau complained that she was sick, but she was ignored.

In 1993, Ah Mau was convicted of murder for beating her 18-month-old son and refusing to get him medical care. Prison officials want to know if she too died from a lack of care at the Otter Creek Prison.

"I've made the decision that I want look further into this by having a team go up and investigate," Hawaii Prisons Director Frank Lopez said.

Ah Mau's fellow inmates said the 43-year-old woman complained for weeks of stomach pains. Hawaii officials said they didn't know that.

"The information that we got was that this was a cardiac arrest," Lopez said.

In addition to questions about the cause of death and possible denied medication, there is also a concern about whether Ah Mau was removed from life support without her family's consent and whether an autopsy was done.

Inmate rights attorney Eric Seitz said the lack of an autopsy would be a major problem.

"That would certainly raise a lot of red flags and I think that anybody ought to be concerned about that," Seitz said.

Hawaii inmates on the mainland are supposed to have direct access to Hawaii officials in order to complain about their conditions. That's why the public safety director is concerned that the information he's getting about Ah Mau's death is coming from third party, unofficial sources, such as her family friends and the news media.

"This is the first that we've heard that there are more health concerns by the other inmates," Lopez said.

Seitz said overall, mainland prisons hired to house Hawaii inmates have done a better job of providing health care than local prisons.

Ah Mau was serving 15 years to life. At sentencing, she had claimed she was innocent of her son's death.