Echoing Arkansas Death, Lawsuit Alleges Inmate Starved to Death in Indiana

Joshua McLemore was speaking unintelligibly and having an apparent psychotic break—rambling "about gangsters chasing him and demons attempting to dismember him"— when a nurse tapped his shoulder. Spooked, he pulled the nurse's hair, according to Indiana State Police and prosecutor records.

With that, the 29-year-old McLemore was charged July 20, 2021, with battery resulting in bodily injury to a public safety official and criminal mischief. He was taken from a southern Indiana hospital, handcuffed and his legs shackled, directly to the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown—about 10 miles from his small hometown of Seymour, where Schneck Medical Center is located. He never appeared before a judge; no bond for the charge was set.

A 47-page federal lawsuit filed Wednesday morning claims that the one incident—pulling the nurse's hair—was followed by a litany of failures at the jail, by jailers, the county sheriff, the medical providers at the facility and a county nurse that led to McLemore's agonizing death by dehydration and starvation in under three weeks in custody. Inside his cell—where he slept an estimated 15 hours over the 20 days he was there—McLemore, naked and deep in a psychosis, rolled around in his urine and feces, refused food and liquids and lost 45 of his nearly 198 pounds, according to Indiana State Police investigators and the lawsuit.

An autopsy found he died of "multiple organ failure due to refusal to eat or drink with altered mental status due to untreated schizophrenia." The 20 days are captured on roughly 480 hours of footage from a motion-activated camera in his cell, chronicling McLemore's decompensation with no medical or jail intervention or efforts to send him out for medical treatment, the suit contends. (WARNING: The four videos included in the lawsuit are quite graphic. They are given as Exhibits 1, 2, 3, and 4.)

McLemore's death mirrors that of Larry Eugene Price, Jr., who also died of dehydration and starvation, in the Sebastian County Adult Detention center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just weeks apart. Newsweek has chronicled Price's death, and a Justice Department review was opened in his case. Price, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of his estate, suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder like McLemore—he slowly died in an isolated jail cell, allegedly neglected by jail staff and private medical personnel contracted to provide care at the jail, over a year and 10 days. Jail, autopsy and EMS records showed Price dropped from 185 pounds to 90.

In both deaths, prosecuting attorneys declined to file charges. In McLemore's case, Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey A. Chalfant wrote that he "most likely died due to a prolonged lack of attention by Jackson County Jail staff as a group...the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney finds that no crimes were committed by employees of the Jackson County Jail related to the death of Joshua A McLemore." In his June 2022 findings, Chalfant did not rule out civil action, but did so on the criminal side.

'Strapped Naked To a Restraint Chair'

McLemore was never medically evaluated inside the jail, according to state police investigators and the lawsuit. No medical questionnaire was filled out at jail intake, records show, and no medical attention was rendered during those 20 days. Until, according to the suit, it was far too late.

The federal complaint, filed in the Southern District of Indiana New Albany Division, names as defendants Jackson County, Sheriff Rick Meyer, jail Commander Chris Everhart, jail Sergeant Scott Ferguson, and county nurse Milton Edward Rutan. Newsweek could not immediately reach the Jackson County sheriff's office, or county attorney Susan D. Bevers of Lorenzo Bevers Braman & Connell in Seymour.

The suit also names Dr. Ronald Everson, employed by Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc., a Tennessee-based provider in 21 states. The suit, filed on behalf of McLemore's estate through the Seattle law firm Budge & Heipt, is one of at least 305 federal lawsuits naming ACH as a defendant, including for civil rights abuses, since 2004, according to a Newsweek search.

Newsweek received the following comments from Jessica Young, president and chief executive at ACH, which was founded in 2002:

"We take criticisms of the care provided by our team seriously," Young wrote. "We are prohibited from disclosing patient information due to federal HIPAA privacy and confidentiality laws...ACH manages contracts to care for over 34,685 patients in more than 370 correctional facilities across 21 states. ACH's family of businesses retain 74% of full-time employees. ACH is proud to have a 95% client retention rate. ACH has a reputation for solving problems by doing the right thing the first time. In the last year, at least 52 patient lives have been saved."

In Price's case, a lawsuit was filed January 13 against Sebastian County, which runs the jail and a nurse and doctor for Turn Key Health Clinics of Oklahoma City. Turn Key was also sued as a company in the lawsuit filed in the Western District of Arkansas. All defendants have denied the allegations in court filings since the suit.

Like Price, McLemore rarely was allowed to leave his cell, despite state regulations requiring an hour out each day—and he was forcibly put in a restraint chair to shower so other inmates could mop up his urine, feces and the food he mixed in, the federal complaint and state police records say.

"(McLemore) received virtually no medical monitoring or care of any kind throughout his confinement, even as his psychosis persisted and his physical condition worsened," the suit states. "Josh was on 'Medical Observation' for the entirety of his pretrial detention...However, the required observation logs were maintained only for the first seven-and-a-half days. Those logs were incomplete and provided little useful information regarding Josh's mental state. For the rest of Josh's time in the jail, the required 15-minute observations were either not performed or not documented."

Instead, the complaint alleges Sheriff Meyer, Commander Everhart and Rutan, the nurse, stood nearby as McLemore was hauled from his cell and restrained to be showered.

The scene, taken from the video, was described in the suit as exhibiting "unreasonable and unnecessary force."

"As Josh lay in his cell, posing no threat, five officers entered," the complaint says. "Three of them pinned Josh to the floor, face-down, and tied his hands behind his back, while a fourth tried to speak to him and a fifth stood and watched. The guards removed Josh from his cell and strapped him, naked, into a restraint chair."

Then, he was showered, or had water and soap simply poured over him as a nurse tried to bathe McLemore, according to the suit.

At another point, as McLemore tried to drink some liquid through a straw from Rutan while lying on a thin mat "listless and near death, four officers were hanging out at the officer station just a few feet away," the complaint states. "One of the officers appeared to be scrolling through his social media feed on his iPhone."

"You'd think the Price case would be the only one, right?" said Hank Balson of Budge & Heipt, the attorney who filed the complaint, in an interview with Newsweek. "But here's this case." Budge & Heipt is the same firm representing the Price estate.

'He called me Mama'

McLemore grew up in Gulfport and Long Beach, Mississippi, graduated from Long Beach High School and attended Mississippi State University. He had struggled with drugs and his mental health while in high school. But the complaint and a family friend—the mother of his late fiancée—say it wasn't until later that he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with medication.

All seemed well, said Susan Wildin, whose daughter, Abby Smith, lived with McLemore before she died in a collision with a semi on a narrow highway in Texas, where they had moved so McLemore could work as a safety officer on an oil rig.

"I never saw any bad side of Josh. Ever," Wildin said. "To me, he was just a sweet boy, respectful...He called me Mama even after Abby died because that's what Abby called me."

Although they were together only a matter of months, Wildin said it was the first time Abby said "she was happy and in love. That just never happened." On her funeral memorial, McLemore wrote to Smith: "Abby, We had just begun to dance. I will love you forever. Eternally. Even After Death."

After her daughter died in August 2019, McLemore quit taking his medications and began collapsing mentally, Wildin said. He had a falling out with his mother and moved to Indiana to meet his father, who had given up parental rights when McLemore was six months old, Wildin said.

It was summer 2021 when McLemore's mom got nervous, according to Wildin and the lawsuit. She knew her son suffered from schizophrenia and drug abuse, including methamphetamine use. She had been calling and texting him repeatedly, getting no answer—so a call was placed to his apartment manager that July 20. The manager found McLemore naked on the floor of his bedroom, terribly confused. He was taken by ambulance to Schneck Medical Center for psychiatric help.

She never heard from him again.

Instead, Rhonda McLemore, a member of the U.S. Navy and a single mother, got a call from Mercy West Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where her son had been airlifted from Schneck Medical Center in Seymour just after midnight on August 9, 2021. She flew to Cincinnati from her home in Mississippi to learn her only option after consulting with Mercy West doctors was whether to end her son's life.

With all seemingly lost, his mother "made the excruciating decision to withdraw life support," the suit says. McLemore died at 5:05 p.m. on August 10, according to his autopsy. Rhonda McLemore died of a heart attack about 16 months after her son died, Wildin said.

'Treated Josh Like an Animal'

The jail had one county-employed licensed nurse, Rutan, who worked between three and four days a week, and Dr. Everson, who was under contract with ACH to visit the jail at least once a week, Balson.

The remainder of the days were not staffed with any medical personnel, he said.

"This is another example of what happens when we rely on law enforcement to deal with people who are severely mentally ill," Balson said. "Josh should have been in a mental health facility...When we look at this video, it's hard to imagine somebody could see that and not immediately know this guy needs help...They treated Josh like an animal."

McLemore's aunt, Melita Ladner, said that McLemore's death shattered his mother, Ladner's sister. "Even though he struggled with mental health issues, we loved him with all our hearts."

About the lawsuit and its allegations, she said in an email through Balson: "What happened to Josh should never happen to anybody in a jail...Jackson County and the people who were responsible for Josh need to be held accountable...In America, jails are supposed to be humane. But what happened to Josh was cruel and senseless...We want to send a message that jails cannot treat people like this. We want to make sure other families don't have to go through the kind of pain our family has been forced to endure from this senseless neglect."

Wildin said she saw the photos of her daughter after her death, and she wasn't expecting to be shocked by what she saw of McLemore. But before McLemore was pronounced dead, his mom sent hospital pictures to Wildin. "They were horrible," Wildin said. "His feet were black. His hands were black. His eyes – he looked like someone who had had a lobotomy...His eyes were open, but he was gone...It just weighs on your heart."

Eric Ferkenhoff can be reached at e.ferkenhoff@newsweek.com. Find him on Twitter @EricFerk.

Valerie Bauman can be reached at v.bauman@newsweek.com. Find her on Twitter @valeriereports.