‘He didn't deserve to die like this’: Family seeks answers about suicide during Waupun prison lockdown

Editor’s note: This article discusses suicide and suicidal ideation. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.

Dean Hoffmann often talked about freedom in letters to his family.

From his cell in Dodge Correctional Institution, he dreamed of creating a home in the countryside, where he would raise chickens and grow rhubarb, asparagus and peas. He wrote about his passion for reading and his love for his children.

In a letter to his son, postmarked in March, he said he was excited about the future.

“I am not sad or depressed in here,” he wrote. “... Being free again will be great.”

Three months later, shortly after being transferred to Waupun Correctional Institution, Dean’s family learned he had died by suicide after nine days in solitary confinement.

Dean, who was 60 years old, had a documented history of mental health challenges, including bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts, according to his family and medical records reviewed by the Journal Sentinel. At the time of his death, he was serving a 28 year sentence for assaulting and tying up his ex-girlfriend in 2018. It was his first criminal charge.

Dean’s ex-wife and children are now questioning whether the prison gave him adequate mental health treatment and whether solitary confinement was appropriate, given his diagnosis.

His death also raises larger questions about access to mental health care in Wisconsin jails and prisons, transparency around in-custody deaths, and the frequent use of solitary confinement across the state correctional system.

The state's use of solitary confinement has been on the rise since March, in particular for people with serious mental illnesses, according to figures from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Moreover, Dean’s death came amid the lockdown at Waupun Correctional Institution, now in its sixth month. People incarcerated at Waupun during this time have been locked in their cells typically 24 hours a day, are not permitted visitors and are banned from gathering in communal spaces. Prisoners say they are living in inhumane conditions and being denied legal services. Prison officials have not signaled an end to the lockdown.

DOC spokesperson Kevin Hoffman declined to answer questions about Dean’s mental health care while in custody, citing HIPAA, a medical privacy law. However, he said Dean would not have been denied medication or treatment if a medical professional deemed them necessary.

He said Dean’s was the only suicide at the Waupun prison since the lockdown.

But Justin Welch, who has been incarcerated at Waupun since last November, said multiple people have attempted suicide in recent months. In an email to the Journal Sentinel last week, he blamed the stress of the lockdown and the shortage of mental health staff.

“It just kills me,” Welch wrote. “This should not be happening on this level at any prison in this country.”

Dean faced mental health challenges

Dean and Deborah were childhood sweethearts, meeting in Cedarburg when they were both 18 years old. He was an avid reader and writer, Deborah said.

After having two children, they divorced in 1991 but remained close, according to Deborah. Shortly after they split, Dean was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

For the next 30 years, she said Dean managed his disorder with various medications, although he sometimes struggled with taking it consistently.

Paperwork from Ascension Columbia St. Mary's Ozaukee in Mequon shows Dean was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, “suicidal ideation" and “noncompliance with medications” in 2015. His medical record showed two medications: one antidepressant and another medication commonly use to treat seizures or the manic phase of bipolar disorder.

Three years later, according to court records, Dean was arrested in Sheboygan County after entering his ex-girlfriend's house without permission, punching her and tying her up, before ordering pizza.

Prosecutors charged Dean with a host of crimes, including kidnapping, battery and strangulation.

About a year later, he received more charges, including conspiracy to commit murder, following a conversation in which he encouraged a friend to contact his ex-girlfriend.

Dean pleaded not guilty by mental disease. Court records show a psychologist ultimately testified that Dean had bipolar disorder but was capable of understanding the consequences of his actions. The psychologist's report also noted that, according to Deborah, Dean had stated to multiple people in the days prior to the incident that he was suicidal.

Deborah said Dean was initially "incoherent" after his arrest but soon stabilized while in Sheboygan County Jail. Dean wrote his family many letters stating how well he was doing.

But in the lead-up to his trial in 2022, something changed, according to Deborah. She said it became difficult to hold conversations with Dean again.

“I know Dean medicated, I know Dean not medicated, and I was becoming increasingly concerned,” she said.

While the family was unable to confirm their suspicions, letters from Dean and a handful of medical request forms from the months of May to October 2022 show Dean was concerned about his medical care. In one letter, he said a nurse told him he would no longer be receiving his medication because he was refusing to take it. In another, he asked if he could see a doctor.

Sheboygan County Sheriff Cory Roeseler declined to comment about Dean’s medical care at the jail, citing HIPAA.

During his trial, Dean’s mental health continued to be a concern, according to his former attorney, John Schiro.

Schiro said Dean began to ignore his guidance and instead started taking legal advice over the phone from a prisoner in Oklahoma. Schiro and a second attorney both eventually withdrew from the case.

In February, after more than four years awaiting trial, Dean was convicted on all charges except for conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison, without an attorney present.

He was then transferred to Dodge Correctional Institution, where recently convicted people are given medical and mental health evaluations and assigned to the appropriate correctional facility.

There, Dean was assigned to Waupun – one of Wisconsin’s five maximum-security prisons.

David Liners, executive director of prison advocacy group WISDOM, has urged corrections officials to place individuals with severe mental health conditions in the Wisconsin Resource Center in Oshkosh, which is run by the state’s Department of Health Services instead of the DOC.

“We know how to deal with people with severe mental health issues and yet we reserve it for this tiny number,” Liners said. “And then there’s a whole lot of other people languishing in these places — in particular in these really unhealthy places like Waupun and Green Bay (Correctional Institution).”

Schiro does not feel the justice system took enough account of Dean’s mental health challenges.

“He shouldn’t have been in a lockdown prison,” Schiro said. “He should have been in a locked medical facility.”

Phone calls from Dean stopped coming

Dean arrived at Waupun on April 10, less than two weeks after the start of the lockdown.

Immediately, Dean began to tell Deborah about the horrors unfolding at the prison, saying he was placed in one of the worst cell halls.

“He would just keep saying, ‘It’s just so bad here. It’s just so bad,” Deborah said.

On May 5, in one of the only letters Dean sent from Waupun, he wrote to Deborah that he was trying to get on the right “supplements.” Deborah believes he was taking over-the-counter vitamins to manage his bipolar disorder, in lieu of proper medication.

She said when they did connect on the phone it was brief and difficult to hold a conversation.

Eventually Dean went silent.

On June 20, Dean was placed in solitary confinement for “disobeying orders” and refusing to lock up in his cell, according to DOC.

Nine days later, Dean was dead by suicide.

A prisoner at Waupun, whom the Journal Sentinel is not naming due to concerns about retaliation, said in an email to the Journal Sentinel last week that he often overheard Dean complaining about his medication. Shortly before Dean’s death, the prisoner said he also heard Dean telling guards he felt suicidal.

“As usual, they ignored him,” the prisoner wrote.

The DOC declined to answer questions about whether it had any record of Dean reporting suicidal thoughts prior to his death, citing patient privacy.

Research shows consequences of solitary confinement

Starting in 2009, lawmakers across the country have passed or introduced bills that would curb or stop the use of solitary confinement.

A 2020 review of 13 studies on solitary confinement found that the practice was associated with increased probability of negative psychological effects, including self-harm and death — especially by suicide.

But, like many states, Wisconsin’s use of solitary continues.

According to DOC data, 957 people were in solitary confinement as of August, including 122 people with serious mental health illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and severe depression.

During that same time period, Waupun Correctional Institution had 144 people in solitary confinement, including 22 people with severe mental illness.

Dr. Terry Kupers, a forensic psychiatrist at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, said the practice causes “a huge amount of mental damage.”

“There's a proclivity for people who have any kind of inkling of a suicidal intention or plan for that to become more intense and compelling,” Kupers said.

In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin sued the DOC over conditions at the supermax prison in Boscobel, now known as the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility, which was holding prisoners in long-term solitary confinement.

The federal judge overseeing the case ultimately ordered that prisoners with serious mental health illnesses be removed on an emergency basis.

David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said the fact that the practice continues is alarming.

“The Wisconsin prison system should know from this case more than 20 years ago that solitary confinement of people with serious mental illness is extraordinarily dangerous,” Fathi said. “It's one of the most dangerous things you can do as a prison administrator.”

Family seeks justice, with few results

Shortly after Dean’s death, his family received what remained of his belongings: some clothes, a few electronics and nine bottles of vitamins.

Notably absent were any pens or notebooks, a sign that Dean had stopped writing — one of his lifelong hobbies.

Ever since, his children and ex-wife have been lobbying to bring attention to his case.

In July, Deborah wrote to the state Department of Justice about Dean’s death. A week later, she received a form letter stating that the agency decided not to take further action.

“We receive several thousand reports of civil rights violations each year,” the DOJ letter stated. “We unfortunately do not have the resources to take direct action for every report.”

Deborah also wrote to Gov. Tony Evers’ office, which offered condolences but declined to provide further information, pending the outcome of DOC’s investigation.

In a statement to the Journal Sentinel, Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback again offered condolences but deferred questions to DOC.

“It is a tragedy any time a person in the care of one of Wisconsin’s correctional institutions passes away,” Cudaback wrote. However, she said, “We will continue to rely upon department leadership’s professional judgment in determining what changes or modifications are necessary and when.”

Prisoner deaths are investigated internally by the DOC’s Committee on Inmate and Youth Deaths, as well as local law enforcement. The DOC has concluded its investigation, according to a department spokesperson, but has not responded to a records request to release the report. The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office also said its investigation is finished but declined to provide records, citing a victim's rights law.

Deborah still gets emotional when she imagines the torment her ex-husband likely felt as he sat alone in his cell.

She says her family discussed bringing Dean’s grandchildren to Waupun to visit him, but they never got the chance because of the lockdown.

“He didn’t deserve to die like this,” she said. “No one deserves to die like this.”

Contact Drake Bentley at dbentley1@gannett.com or 414-391-5647. Contact Vanessa Swales at vswales@gannett.com or 414-308-5881.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A man died by suicide during the Waupun prison lockdown. His family wants answers.