A woman in Tarrant County jail needed help, suit says. Instead she died on her cell floor

A woman with severe mental health issues died from dehydration in a Tarrant County jail cell in what a lawsuit calls a “a tragic, completely unnecessary death.”

Georgia Kay Baldwin was declared incompetent to stand trial and should have been transferred to a state hospital, according to the federal suit filed on Thursday. Instead, her mental state deteriorated until Sept. 14, 2021, when the 52-year-old was found dead in her cell. Her cause of death was listed as dehydration; she lay right next to the working water fountain affixed to her cell toilet.

Baldwin’s sons filed the wrongful death lawsuit against Tarrant County in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas-Fort Worth division. The suit alleges the Tarrant County jail caused Baldwin’s death due to its “policies, practices and customs” of not caring for incarcerated people’s medical and mental crises.

Baldwin needed someone to help her during her 15 weeks inside the Tarrant County jail, said Dean Malone, the lawyer representing her family in the civil suit.

“And instead of that happening, she ends up dying in a jail cell,” Malone said. “That’s a pretty horrific way to die.”

The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office referred the Star-Telegram’s request for comment about the lawsuit to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Baldwin’s death exemplifies a growing mental health crisis in U.S. jails, Malone said.

“This is far too common a situation not only in Tarrant County, but across the state,” Malone said. “There are far too many deaths in jail for people who should have been receiving inpatient services.”

Arrest and incarceration

Baldwin’s mental health issues were clear from the moment she was arrested, according to the lawsuit.

Prior to her arrest, Baldwin left a series of bizarre voicemails for an Arlington police officer. In the messages, Baldwin talked about wanting “one or more people to die;” in one, she mentioned that the governor of Mississippi needed to “blow someone away.” In another message, she asked if someone was going to arrest a man for the death of Amber Hagerman (the 9-year-old girl whose 1996 abduction and murder led to the creation of the Amber Alert system) so that Baldwin could receive $10,000 in her account.

When the Arlington detective researched Baldwin, the suit says, the officer found other police reports that indicated Baldwin was not mentally sound. Nevertheless, Baldwin was arrested on April 27, 2021, and charged with making a terroristic threat. At the time she was booked at the Lon Evans Corrections Center, the suit says, Tarrant County’s maximum security jail notified a magistrate that Baldwin was “suspected of having mental illness.”

On May 20, 2021, a psychiatrist examined Baldwin. On June 7 — six weeks after Baldwin’s arrest — the psychiatrist filed a report saying Baldwin was incompetent and not able to stand trial. Baldwin was ordered to go through a “competency restoration program” at the jail. Competency restoration programs provide services to people with mental health disorders in jail.

She was discharged from the program on July 27. At that point, Baldwin should have been taken to a North Texas state hospital, the lawsuit says. Instead, she stayed at the jail “in a small cell, where she could not see through a window or view other human beings, until and including the time of her death,” the suit says.

Mental health worsens

In the weeks before Baldwin’s death, Tarrant County jail officers dutifully noted the woman’s deteriorating mental state, according to records included in the lawsuit.

On May 31, 2021, Baldwin was “unkempt and had matted hair.” On June 21, she “did not appear to fully comprehend where she was at the moment” and “was unable to communicate her needs… and was severely low functioning due to her mental health diagnosis.” Throughout July, Tarrant County jail officers noted that Baldwin appeared delusional, was not showering regularly and refused to take her medication. She said the government was trying to kill her, and cried as she repeatedly asked for a bus ticket to Arizona.

On Sept. 14, the day of her death, records in the lawsuit say Baldwin lay on her cell floor with most of her clothes off. Her cell was dirty, and pieces of toilet paper were torn into small shreds and strewn on the floor. She appeared shaky as if she had been crying and did not “appear to be herself,” the notes say.

At 10:09 a.m., the jail called for a medical code for Baldwin when she was found unresponsive in her cell, according to the custodial death report. She was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital and pronounced dead.

A Texas Ranger investigated Baldwin’s death, according to the lawsuit, and found that Baldwin’s death did not involve criminal acts on the part of the jail.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office conducted an autopsy and determined Baldwin had severe hypernatremic dehydration — high concentration of sodium in the blood that is caused by not having enough fluids.

The Texas Ranger who investigated Baldwin’s death noted in his report that Baldwin had a water fountain in her cell. The report noted that hypernatremia “usually occurs because of impaired mental judgment,” according to the lawsuit.

“When you have a person who is incarcerated who is delusional or psychotic... they can at times forget whether they’ve eaten or whether they’ve been able to drink water or fluids,” Malone said.

Other deaths at Tarrant County jail

According to the suit, other deaths at Tarrant County jail facilities, understaffing and the jail’s noncompliance with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards contributed to Baldwin’s death.

The suit includes a description of 55 deaths at the jail since 2011. According to the suit, those deaths show the jail knew it “could not meet its constitutional obligations to provide medical and mental health treatment to, and protect (Baldwin).“

“It really comes down to caring for people who have known issues,” Malone said.

The suit cites inspections in 2020 in which officers were not conducting routine checks of cells frequently enough.

In March 2021, Tarrant County contracted with a third party to review staffing needs, and the independent company found the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office was “significantly understaffed,” the suit says. The company urged the county to prioritize understaffing at the Lon Evans Correctional Center, where Baldwin was held. The correctional center was 43 employees short of the level recommended at the time of the review, five months before Baldwin’s death, according to the suit.

Malone said the inspections provide only a glimpse into larger problems at the jail.

Since January 2022, 14 people have died in the Tarrant County jail, according to custodial death records. The Star-Telegram has reported extensively on deaths inside the jail. A Star-Telegram investigation into the death of Robert Miller, who died in 2019 after he was pepper sprayed in the jail, raised questions about Miller’s cause of death, which Tarrant County’s autopsy report listed as natural from a sickle cell crisis.