Terrell Vance had been in the Wentworth County Jail for eight days on a probation violation when guards found him unresponsive in his cell early last week. Now his family wants to know why medical staff weren't called sooner.
The Wentworth County Sheriff’s Office has opened an internal investigation into the death of a 34-year-old man who was found unresponsive in his cell at the county jail last week, the latest incident to draw scrutiny to a facility that has run well above its designed capacity for much of the past two years.
Terrell Vance, a Lowertown resident, had been held at the jail for eight days on a probation violation stemming from an earlier drug charge when a corrections officer discovered him unresponsive during an early-morning bed check, according to Sheriff Nathaniel Cobb. Vance was pronounced dead at the scene; the Wentworth County Medical Examiner’s office has not yet released a cause of death.
Family says calls for help went unanswered
Vance’s sister, Patrice Vance, said her brother had been in opioid withdrawal for much of his time in custody and told relatives during phone calls that he had asked corrections staff for medical attention repeatedly in the days before his death. “He called me Sunday night and said he’d told three different officers he needed to see the nurse,” she said. “Nobody ever came.”
My brother went into that jail scared and sick, and he never came out. Somebody owes this family an explanation, not a form letter.
Patrice Vance, sister of Terrell Vance
Nadia Fontaine, the Wentworth County public defender who represented Vance on the probation matter, said she had raised concerns about his access to medical care with jail staff twice in the two weeks before his death. “He wasn’t someone who should have been sitting in a cell going through withdrawal without a treatment plan,” Fontaine said. “That’s a policy failure as much as anything else.”
Sheriff Pruitt said jail policy requires corrections officers to notify medical staff within 15 minutes of any inmate request involving withdrawal symptoms, and that the internal investigation will examine intake records, officer logs and security footage to determine whether that policy was followed. “I’m not going to pre-judge what happened here,” Pruitt said. “But if our people fell short of our own standard, we will say so publicly and we will act on it.”
Jail already under scrutiny for overcrowding
The jail, built to hold 412 inmates, has held close to 480 in recent months, according to figures the sheriff’s office released amid a separate push by advocates to ease crowding. Jail Administrator Capt. Elias Whitmore said the facility has operated with roughly one corrections officer for every 22 inmates on overnight shifts, compared with a staffing ratio closer to 1-to-14 five years ago.
“We have not hidden from the fact that this facility is stretched,” Whitmore said. “Whether that contributed to what happened to Mr. Vance is exactly what this investigation needs to determine.”
Bruce Calloway, director of the Wentworth County Legal Aid Coalition, said his organization is calling on the county to bring in an outside investigator rather than relying solely on the sheriff’s office to review its own conduct. “An internal review from the same agency that ran the jail the night this man died is not independent, and the family deserves an independent set of eyes,” Calloway said.
County Council Member Terrence Boudreaux, who represents Lowertown, said he has asked the sheriff’s office to release the full incident report once the investigation concludes rather than a summary. “Lowertown has buried too many of its own to addiction,” Boudreaux said. “The last thing this community needs is to feel like one more death behind bars got quietly filed away.”
District Attorney Vivian Ashcroft said her office has been notified of Vance’s death and will review the sheriff’s findings once complete to determine whether any criminal charges are warranted, a process she said typically takes several weeks. Vance’s family has retained an attorney and said it is considering a wrongful-death claim against the county pending the outcome of the investigation.
Vance’s death is the second in-custody death at the Wentworth County Jail in five years, according to figures the sheriff’s office released Tuesday. The earlier case, involving an inmate who died of a preexisting cardiac condition, did not result in policy changes at the time, something Calloway said should have been a warning sign. “We asked for an outside review after that death too, and we were told it wasn’t necessary,” Calloway said. “I would like someone to explain to this family why it wasn’t necessary then and is somehow necessary now.”
Pruitt said he expects the internal investigation to conclude within four to six weeks, and that he intends to release a public summary of the findings regardless of what they show. “This family and this community deserve more than silence while we sort this out,” he said. “I would rather take criticism for an uncomfortable finding than for hiding one.”