QUESTIONABLE IN CUSTODY DEATHS AT THE Volusia County Division of Corrections
Updated March 30, 2011
"This is not a time to keep the facts from the people, to keep them complacent. To sound the alarm is not to panic but to seek action from an aroused public...The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality."- John F. Kennedy, Sept. 1959
UPDATE - according to local media reports, Inmate Heidi Wooley was discovered dead in her medical segregation cell late on Sunday, March 27, 2011 - MORE TO COME....
Ms. Tracy Lee Veira was a 28 year old mother of two. She turned herself into the authorities in regards to warrants for her arrest. It is apparent that Ms. Veira had a substance abuse problem. The jail's medical staff recognized the need to place her under a special medical watch (every 15 minutes) due to withdrawals from those substances. Click the above link and determine for yourself whether jail staff properly monitored Ms. Veira's condition. Also determine for yourself whether the jail administration took appropriate corrective action, or were they more interested in covering up the facts surrounding her death? Read the reports attached to this death and decide for yourself.
UPDATE July 21, 2010 Documents support that in September 2007, Muriel Comeau committed suicide while incarcerated at the Volusia County jail. Please see our developing web page on this incident.
Mr. Nelson was arrested in December 2006 for pan handling. He was an older man with obvious medical concerns. Mr. Nelson was assigned a single cell, probably due to his age and ailments. From 2300 hrs to 0600 hrs correctional staff are required to make hourly rounds within the inmate housing blocks to ensure the health and safety of the inmate population.
While the assigned correctional staff documented, in the cell block log book that these mandatory rounds were completed, there appears to be a later recant by these officers that the rounds were not actually done.
Was Mr. Nelson left to die alone in a locked cell without access to help, due to the officers not making their hourly rounds?
Mr. Jodon was arrested in July 2010 as a suspect in a murder. In late August 2010 he was found hanging in his jail cell and taken to the hospital. In earlier September 2010 he died from his apparent injuries. The Volusia County Sheriff Department is currently investigating. More to come as information is released.
Mr. Ronald Wadsworth was a 43 year old man that appeared to be suffering from mental health issues. Due to his strange behaviors he was arrested. After his arrest he was able to walk into the jail. Months later and after having spent months in isolation he had to be transported out of the jail under medical supervision, to an advanced medical facility. His medical condition had deteriorated to the point where he had lost much of his body weight and had developed bed sores.
Although Mr. Wadsworth did not die at the jail, it is for the reader to decide whether he received appropriate medical treatment within the jail. And if not, was this lack of treatment a cause of his untimely death?
Ms. Wilson was in jail on minor traffic charges.
Just prior to her incarceration she had been a patient in a local hospital. Ms. Wilson made several pleas to the staff that she was in severe pain. These pleas although not ignored, were handled in what some have determined to be an inappropriate manner.
Ms. Wilson death was investigated by the State Prison Inspector under his authority of Florida Administrative Code 33-8. Due to this investigation, this death was reviewed by the grand jury and many corrective actions were taken.
However, unlike the investigation into Ms. Wilson's death, with the repeal of F.A.C. 33-8, Florida jails are now left to self inspect each other under the new Florida Model Jail Standards (FMJS). Not only do these standards have no enforcement powers, but the FMJS Commission has no investigatory authority to investigate In Custody Jail deaths. This should be very disturbing to all Florida citizens.
