KEITH BROWN

INMATE, 18, HANGS HIMSELF IN CELL
Teen was in juvenile lockup for violating sex-assault probation

By Carla Crowder Denver
Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

An 18-year-old inmate committed suicide Wednesday night at a privately run juvenile lockup in Jefferson County.

Keith Brown was serving time for violating his probation on a third-degree sexual assault case when employees found him hanging in his cell, said Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, which oversees youth corrections.

The incident occurred shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Foothills facility, run by the private company Youthtrack. Foothills occupies a building on the campus of Montview Youth Services Center in Jefferson County.

Brown had been at the facility less than a month.

He had lashed out earlier Wednesday, becoming confrontational and disruptive, McDonough said.

Employees saw him for the last time about 8 p.m. "He just came out and apologized for behaving badly," McDonough said.

Later, as employees were handing out an evening snack, they found him hanging from a towel knotted and wedged through a window.

"It sounds like a matter of 15 to 30 minutes" that he was left alone, McDonough said.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department will conduct a criminal investigation.

The Colorado Department of Human Services will also conduct a review of the death.

The state pays Youthtrack to operate Foothills, which houses 20 to 25 youths.

Youthtrack declined comment, referring all questions to the state.

November 4, 2000

TIMOTHY RADKE

FATHER FURIOUS OVER SON'S SUICIDE WHILE IN JAIL

Timothy Radke was found hanging in a shower stall
by a sheriff's deputy

Rocky Mountain News
By David Montero,
October 23, 2006

Michael Radke's son is dead and he's furious.

"The whole thing is a nightmare," he said. "I will be relentless."

Timothy Radke died on his 34th birthday after being found by a Jefferson County sheriff's deputy hanging in a shower stall at the county jail on Friday. Jail officials say it was an apparent suicide.

Michael Radke is seething.

"I told the judge he was suicidal, and I told the people at the jail," he said. "But they don't think they're accountable."

Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, said Timothy Radke was arrested in Lakewood on Oct. 9 on charges of second-degree burglary, felony theft and giving false information, and was still in the course of pretrial proceedings.

She said he was on suicide watch, but was taken off at some point.

She was unable to confirm when the watch was lifted.

The Jefferson County Detention Facility had four suicides last year - a number so troubling to jail officials that they sent a team to Orange County, Calif., to see what jails there did to prevent suicides. Seven inmates in that county killed themselves over a 12-year span.

Kelley said Jefferson County also had an auditor come in to suggest steps the county could take to lower the number of jail suicides. The most important change, she said, was that now the jail flags potential suicide candidates, and they remain flagged even after they're taken off suicide watch.

In addition, everyone "from the booking clerks to the captains" has to go through training to learn to spot signs that an inmate might be contemplating suicide. Kelley said she believes those two changes are reflected in the fact that Radke is the first suicide of 2006.

According to authorities, a deputy found Radke's body while doing a routine walk-through of the minimum-security housing module. The deputy began CPR and called for help. Radke was taken to Lutheran Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:55 a.m. Saturday.

Michael Radke said his son was depressed because a week ago his wife died of a drug overdose and he was unable to attend the funeral because he was in jail. He said his son also had been depressed for several years stemming from a car accident that left his left arm immobile.

"It's a tragedy," he said. "They must be held to account. There must be changes in the way things operate."

LANCE VANDERSTAPPEN

INMATE HANGS HIMSELF IN COLORADO

White supremacist: The man had stabbed a Latino prisoner in 2004 Salt Lake City court

4/22/07
By Brent Israelsen
The Salt Lake Tribune

A white supremacist who tried to kill a Latino prisoner in the federal courthouse in Salt Lake City last year has died, apparently of suicide, in a Colorado prison.

Lance Vanderstappen - whom prosecutors called "a coldblooded, mean, dangerous individual, one from whom no one is safe" - was found hanging in his cell about 4:10 p.m. Monday in the high-security U.S. penitentiary in Florence, Colo.

"During the 4 p.m. count, which is a stand-up count, Vanderstappen was not standing up. He was hanging from the inner grill of his cell," said prison spokeswoman Krista Rear.

Rear said the 26-year-old Vanderstappen, who was serving 25 years without the possibility of parole, used a bedsheet to hang himself in a cell he occupied by himself.

Corrections officers administered CPR and transported Vanderstappen to the local hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:20 p.m. The investigation remained open Friday, and Rear said the death likely will be ruled a suicide.

With a criminal history dating back to when he was 10, Vanderstappen was sentenced last September to 20 years in prison for attempted murder in the stabbing July 12 of a fellow inmate at the federal courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City.

Vanderstappen had been brought to court that day to be sentenced on a racketeering charge. Minutes after being sentenced to 63 months behind bars, he was returned to a holding cell, where he expelled a shiv, a homemade knife fashioned from a nail clipper, from his body.

He then singled out a Latino prisoner and began stabbing him until U.S. marshals intervened.

Vanderstappen admitted he had planned "to use the shiv to kill someone at the earliest possible opportunity," prosecutors said.

The inmate suffered superficial injuries.

Vanderstappen was one of a dozen men indicted in 2003 on charges that they carried out violent crimes for the Soldiers of the Aryan Culture (SAC), a white supremacist gang that operated a methamphetamine ring from inside and outside Utah's prisons.

Charges were dropped against two, and the rest eventually pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from three to 20 years.

UNNAMED MALE INMATE

EVERETT HORTON

SECOND INMATE SUICIDE IN A MONTH AT JEFFCO JAIL

By Charley Able, Rocky Mountain News
March 18, 2005

GOLDEN - A Jefferson County Jail inmate apparently committed suicide in his cell early Thursday, the second hanging death at the facility in less than a month, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said.

The 26-year-old man, who was not identified pending notification of relatives, was found hanging from a sheet in his cell at 1:50 a.m., spokeswoman Jacki Tallman said. He was pronounced dead at 2:27 a.m. after resuscitation efforts failed.

The inmate had been in the jail since March 11 and was awaiting sentencing in a domestic violence case in Arvada.

He was transferred to Jefferson County from the Denver County jail, where he had been held on outstanding warrants and a parole violation charge.

Although Tallman did not have details of the man's criminal record, she said he had been jailed in Jefferson County "a number of times" on a variety of charges.

The death follows the Feb. 21 death of Everett Horton, who died three days after he was found hanging in his cell.

Tallman said that although there is nothing to indicate a link between the two suicides, "it is still alarming to us that we have had two in a short period of time."

"But are we doing anything different as a result? No. We will continue to do what we are doing, and that is to take a number of steps," she said.

Tallman said the sheriff's office conducts a screening process when each inmate is booked, including interviews with the inmate, following up on information provided by other inmates, and reviewing medical and other records from other detention facilities.

"All of that kind of stuff is constantly taken into consideration," she said. "But in this case, there were no precipitating events. There was no sign of depression. There was no indication there was a special need for concern . . . but we don't have a crystal ball."

Jailers conduct bed checks every 30 minutes, doing so in a random fashion, so no inmate can predict when they will be under watch, Tallman said.

An autopsy will be conducted on the inmate's body today, Chief Deputy Coroner Triena Harper said. Results are not expected to be released until next week.

If the autopsy confirms the death was suicide, it would be the 11th suicide at the jail since it opened in 1986.

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