A Santa Clara County inmate accused of raping a young child died in custody early Thursday by what officials are calling an apparent suicide. According to the Sheriff’s Office, deputies found the 72-year-old man unconscious on the floor of his cell in Elmwood Correctional Facility’s M4-D unit.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Reggie Cooks said custody staff immediately tried to revive the inmate using First Aid and CPR. But paramedics pronounced him dead 26 minutes later.
Authorities will withhold the man’s name until his family is notified. Per standard protocol, the Sheriff’s Office has assigned detectives to investigate the in-custody death with help from the District Attorney’s Office.
While the investigation is still underway, authorities said the preliminary indicators suggest that the inmate took his own life.
The inmate had been locked up since Monday when he was booked on suspicion of 10 felony counts of having sex with a minor.
According to data obtained through a formal records request, the county’s two jails reported 41 attempted suicides since 2012 and a dozen suicide deaths since 2011. That's a slightly higher suicide rate than the national average for county jails. Two of those local jail fatalities occurred last year.
Thirty-five-year-old Cupertino resident Shane Varaiya died by suicide in June after nearly a month in custody. In April, 48-year-old Patrick Missud—a disbarred attorney and vexatious litigant—jumped to his death from the upper level of the M-8 dorm at Elmwood in Milpitas.
It’s unclear why Missud wasn’t flagged as a mental health risk during his intake at jail and why he wasn’t placed on suicide watch. About seven months before his arrest, the South Bay resident was all over the TV news for being involved in a six-hour standoff in which he tried to incite police into shooting him outside San Francisco City Hall.
At least one Main Jail suicide resulted in litigation against the county, which a judge dismissed last month. The mother and young son of Hector Lozano—an inmate who suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia—claimed that jail staff should have done more to prevent his death.
According to the lawsuit filed on behalf of Lozano’s family, the inmate had an extensive history of mental illness, suffered acute psychotic episodes behind bars and was repeatedly placed on observation with 15-minute welfare checks. But on the day he died, May 15, 2015, the jail allegedly took no such precautions.
Though Michael Mannstock—a county social worker and the last person to evaluate Lozano on the day of his suicide—called the inmate’s behavior “consistent with chronic psychosis,” records show that didn’t recommend his transfer from his solitary cell in 246 East Max. Hours later, according to the lawsuit, Lozano “did exactly what he said he would do” and hung himself with his bed sheets. He was 33.
On his suicide note, he wrote: “I kill myself because of the voices that I hear.”
County officials told San Jose Inside that the vast majority of the 750-plus sworn jail deputies have undergone suicide prevention training since Lozano’s death. The county has also allocated $1.4 million to build floor-to-ceiling suicide prevention barriers in the upper tiers at both Elmwood and the Main Jail. Several other suicide prevention measures are underway as part of a reform effort spurred by the 2015 murder of mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree at the hand of three jail guards.
Though Superior Court Judge Edward J. Davila dismissed the Lozano case on Dec. 20 because he didn’t think the defendants should be personally liable for the suicide, he called the circumstances of the case “disturbing and disappointing.”
“The prison staff made a determination that an inmate under their care and supervision, who had a lengthy history of serious mental illness, including being frequently diagnosed as actively suicidal, should be housed in solitary confinement shortly after a routine examination where a prison staff member came to the conclusion that Lozano was no longer at risk of harming himself,” Davila wrote in his decision. “Tragically, despite that decision—or because of it—he committed suicide in the solitary cell where he was placed. Although the conduct of the individual prison officials may not have risen to the level of deliberate indifference, this case sadly brings attention to the level of care and treatment of those in our prisons and jails who wait for adjudication while under the presumption of innocence or are serving a sentence following conviction. The prison, perhaps at a systemic level, wholly failed to protect the welfare of one of its most vulnerable inmates. Because Mannstock’s personal conduct did not rise to the level of deliberate indifference he is entitled to summary judgment. But the circumstances of this case remain troubling and raise serious concerns about a prison system that houses inmates with severe mental illness and suicidal tendencies in solitary confinement.”
My sources are saying the inmate was brought in making comments that should have alerted anyone with suicide prevention training to the suicide risk this man presented. Instead of recognizing the signs, he was shuffled through and tucked away, no watch, no notation of risk… and ultimately hung himself. How many people have to die in Laurie Smith’s jails before the public is convinced that Smith and her administration simply do not care about anything beyond their own public presentation to hang on to their high level salaries and the power they continue to abuse?
Nothing has changed in Laurie Smith’s jails, even less has improved in her enforcement divisions. Nothing has changed in Amy Le’s union. Nothing has changed to convince corrections officers they should do their job with professionalism because their union leadership is backing the Sheriff who has driven the poor morale and poor attitudes.
And her investigations division is now giving off shades of L.A. Rampart going by “Dan’s Wolf Pack” – yes, Captain Box of Rox is literally this incompetent that he believes this is a tribute and not a sign of seriously dangerous underlying issues.
Ok, so some pervert kills himself in the jail. I’m not seeing a down side here.
Ahhh yes, less tax burden on us! LOL
I’m trying to figure out the downside here. A pedifile (let’s just say he’s guilty) with mental illness or not, just killed himself. He just saved the “justice system,” tons of money, a trial and all that entails. Let God “sort out,” just how guilty he is. Now we can concentrate on helping out the child he raped, that in the end, will be money well spent. Ah, then there are the Caseythomas (must be a lawyer) clowns that do not mention the child at all but the system, how the jail is run and who runs the jail. Then the parting shot on the poor pedifile and how he was abused.
To Curmudgeon comment I believe that if you read the article correctly you would have figured it out that Mr Casey Thomas was referring to Hector Lozano case, not about the first case which is about the rapist. I disagree with the judge’s decision of dismissing his case, he seems to be protecting a jailed system that has had 12 fatalities due to suicide since 2011, that is a very high rate not acceptable by any standards, to not want to make them responsible for their failure to protect those that have mental disabilities is wrong,how many more have to die before any significant changes to make it a safer place for those who need the special attention, to practically admit that your facility is not able to handle for this kind of situations shows the lack of leadership that is need to run an efficient correctional facility. It is time for Sheriff Laurie Smith to resign since it seems that she’s not capable to be efficient and trustworthy of the position she’s in charge off.