Man dies after losing 45 pounds in jail over 20 days, lawsuit says. He ‘needed help’

A 29-year-old man having a mental health crisis died after spending 20 days in a windowless, solitary confinement jail cell, a federal lawsuit says.

Joshua McLemore lost nearly 45 pounds, barely eating or drinking, as a pretrial detainee after first arriving at Jackson County Jail in Indiana on July 20, 2021, according to a complaint filed April 12.

During the booking process, officers never photographed him, took his fingerprints or evaluated his medical health despite knowing he came directly from a hospital, the complaint says. Instead, he was dropped off in a padded isolation cell where he deteriorated in a “constant state of psychosis,” according to the complaint.

McLemore wasn’t helped “until it was too late” and died on Aug. 10, 2021, from extreme malnutrition and dehydration, the complaint says.

His death was preventable, according to the lawsuit filed by McLemore’s aunt Melita Ladner against Jackson County, Jackson County Sheriff Rick Meyer, the jail’s commander and a few staff members, and Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc. which provides health care services to people in the jail.

“He was out of touch with reality and needed help,” Hank Balson, one of the attorneys representing the case from Budge and Heipt PLLC law firm, told McClatchy News in a statement.

“Instead of getting Josh the care he so desperately needed, the Jackson County Sheriff and his staff left Josh alone in his cell, naked, barely sleeping or eating, for almost three weeks as he wasted away in front of their eyes,” Balson said.

McClatchy News contacted Jackson County officials and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office on April 12 and didn’t immediately receive a response.

Jessica Young, the president of Advanced Correctional Healthcare, headquartered in Tennessee, told McClatchy News that “we take criticisms of the care provided by our team seriously.”

She said the company isn’t allowed to speak on patients’ information because of federal privacy and confidentiality laws.

A nine-month investigation by the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office determined McLemore “most likely died due to a prolonged lack of attention by Jackson County Jail staff as a group,” according to a report on the findings released June 29.

However, Jackson County Prosecutor Jeffrey A. Chalfant wrote no one person committed a crime and decided criminal charges against jail employees weren’t warranted.

McLemore’s detainment before his death

McLemore was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and raised in Long Beach by his mother, Rhonda McLemore, who died in December, more than a year after her son’s death, according to the complaint.

He liked to read, play chess and video games, and watch sports, the complaint says.

In high school, McLemore began having issues with drug use and undiagnosed mental illness, and he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, for which he repeatedly received in-patient psychiatric treatment, according to the complaint.

Although there were times of stability in his life when he was able to work, the “mental illness and drug problems returned,” the complaint says.

In November 2020, he moved to Seymour, Indiana, about 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis, and got a new job.

McLemore’s mother doesn’t hear from her son

On July 20, 2021, McLemore’s mother became anxious because she hadn’t heard from him, and his apartment manager went to check on him, according to the complaint.

McLemore was found naked and incoherent on his bedroom floor, and an ambulance was called, the complaint says.

At the hospital, he showed more signs of “mental incoherence and disorientation,” the complaint says.

About a half-hour after arriving at Schneck Medical Center Emergency Department in Seymour, McLemore got out of his hospital bed and lay on the floor, according to the complaint.

When a nurse walked in the room, tapped his shoulder and requested he get up, he pulled her hair, the complaint says.

Ultimately, a hospital security guard called police, who arrested McLemore, according to the complaint.

An emergency room doctor said McLemore was agitated and experiencing substance abuse and “later acknowledged” he showed signs of mental illness, the complaint says.

He was taken to Jackson County Jail in his underwear and handcuffs, according to the complaint.

McLemore enters the isolation cell

McLemore was directly taken to “Padded Cell 7,” a small, empty cell with bright fluorescent lights a few feet away from the jail’s book-in station, the complaint says.

Three officers stripped him of his underwear, tossed a green suicide smock on the floor after failing to force him in it and left him alone with a thin blanket on the ground nearby, according to the complaint.

“Where am I,” McLemore asked while fidgeting, moving around the floor on his knees, and licking the cell walls and floor, according to the complaint and footage from a surveillance camera recording his activities overhead.

“The (surveillance) video spans more than 400 hours and shows — starkly and unmistakably — the inhumane nature of Josh’s confinement, his active psychosis, and his deteriorating condition over the course of his confinement,” the complaint says.

Although he was placed on “Medical Observation” for the entire 20 days spent in the cell, he barely received any medical monitoring, according to the complaint.

McLemore barely eats, drinks or sleeps and acts erratically

Over 20 days, McLemore slept roughly 15 hours, according to an Indiana State Police detective’s review of the jail surveillance footage, the complaint says.

He also barely ate or drank, according to the complaint.

During his entire time in jail, McLemore acted erratically, including getting up, staring blankly, fidgeting and contorting his body, and repeatedly trying to peer out of the covered window in his cell, according to the complaint.

He barely had access to a sink or toilet because a second door containing a toilet, sink and shower was regularly locked, the complaint says.

McLemore was unable to communicate his need to use the bathroom to the nearby jail guards because of his mental state, the complaint notes. Because of this, he’d urinate and defecate on the cell floor, according to the complaint.

At one point, guards strapped McLemore in a restraint device as another prisoner cleaned his cell, the complaint says.

He was left in this device for more than four and a half hours, which went against jail policy and violated his constitutional rights, the complaint says.

“Over time, the lack of food and water, extreme sleep deprivation, lack of human contact, denial of time outside of his cell, and the other grossly inhumane conditions of his confinement — combined with a lack of any care or treatment whatsoever — took an inevitable and serious toll on Josh’s physical health,” the complaint says.

He weighed 153 pounds on his last day in the jail, down from 197.8 when he entered, on Aug. 8, 2021, according to the complaint.

Photos included in the complaint from July 20, 2021, and Aug. 8, 2021, show his emaciated appearance on his last day, starkly different from his first.

McLemore is taken to a hospital

Around 6 p.m. on McLemore’s final day, he was taken to Schneck Medical Center in an ambulance, the complaint says.

He was so ill from his time at the county jail that he needed to be airlifted to Mercy Health — West Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he arrived at 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 9, 2021, according to the complaint.

By the morning of Aug. 10, he was comatose and on life support, the complaint says.

His mother arrived from Mississippi that afternoon and made the “excruciating” choice in consultation with doctors to take him off life support, according to the complaint.

His cause of death was listed as “multiple organ failure due to refusal to eat or drink” and an “altered mental status” caused by untreated schizophrenia, according to an autopsy report by the Hamilton County Coroner in Ohio.

Methamphetamine withdrawal was also listed in the report as a factor related to his death.

“Josh’s death wasn’t the result of a simple error in judgment,” Balson said in his statement and added that “the jail had no mental health staff.”

He said systemic problems are to blame, “problems the County was aware of and failed to fix.”

Ladner’s lawsuit demands a trial by jury. She was appointed as the administrator of McLemore’s estate after his mother’s death, Balson said.

She seeks compensatory damages over her nephew’s pain and suffering and more.

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