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JOSEPH SPENCE
Associated Press
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Jail guards were not following a judge's order to place a Milford man under a suicide watch when he killed himself at the Bridgeport Correctional Center Friday, prison officials told The Hartford Courant.
Joseph Spence, 52, who was charged with murder in connection with the fatal shooting of his common-law wife, hanged himself, prison officials said. A bed sheet was tied around his neck and the other end was secured to a wall-mounted smoke detector.
A state judge ordered a suicide watch for Spence, but there was no such watch when he hanged himself, said Ed Ramsey, a Department of Correction spokesman.
Ramsey declined to say why the suicide watch was not carried out.
"If he was or was supposed to have been, that's part of his medical information and I wouldn't be able to release that," Ramsey said.
The chief medical examiner confirmed Monday that Spence died of traumatic asphyxia due to hanging.
He was charged with shooting his common-law wife, 62-year-old Deceita Leslie, to death last Wednesday at the couple's home.
Spence's death was the fifth inmate suicide in state custody since April.
Correction Department officials are investigating the deaths. They have re-emphasized to guards the need to conduct timely tours around the cellblocks and have asked them to more aggressively look out for at-risk behavior.
Correction officials are also working with the mental health professionals from the University of Connecticut Medical Center to review the department's intake and treatment policies and procedures.
JAY STEVENS
Mental Services Questioned After 6th Incident This Year
By DIANE STRUZZI
The inmate at MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution who apparently killed himself was identified by Department of Correction officials Tuesday as Jay Stevens, 46, a Waterbury man who was awaiting trial on a murder charge.
Correction officials said Stevens was found by correctional staff at the Suffield prison about 7 p.m. during a routine tour. He was unresponsive in his cell and had a bed sheet tied around his neck with the other end secured to the upper bunk. Although Stevens had a cellmate, the cellmate was not there at the time of the incident, according to correction department spokesman Brian Garnett.
Correction and medical staff initiated life-saving measures, including CPR. Stevens was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford and was pronounced dead at 8 p.m., according to correction officials. Autopsy information from the state medical
examiner's office was not available.
Stevens' death would be the sixth suicide in the prison system this year, a number that has raised the concern of legislators and mental health advocates.
James McGaughey, executive director of the state Office of Protection and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities, said his agency will request information on the incident and is concerned about the number of suicides in the prisons.
"It seems as though once again there is an unusually high number of suicides, as there was last year," McGaughey said. In 2004, there were nine suicides.
The agency is very concerned about what appears to be a systematic problem, McGaughey continued. The prison system had "a consultant come and review procedures but it doesn't seem to have produced much change."
Sheila Amdur, of the Connecticut chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and state Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said the prison system is overwhelmed by too many people with mental illness.
The number of suicides is "symptomatic of an unconscionable increase of people with mental illness in prison because of a lack of mental health services," Amdur said.
Garnett said that the correction department is concerned about any suicide and that he was not aware of a greater number of offenders with mental illness coming into the system. He would not comment on whether Stevens had mental health issues.
Stevens' public defender, John Cizik, said he was not aware that his client had any mental health issues.
"This could not have been more of a shock to me," Cizik said Tuesday of Stevens' apparent suicide.
Stevens faced a charge of murder in connection with the death of his girlfriend, Cynthia Broadbent, 48, who was found bludgeoned to death with a hammer in the Waterbury apartment the two shared, according to Senior Assistant State's Attorney John Davenport. Davenport said Broadbent was killed sometime around May 16 but her body was not
discovered until May 26.
Probable cause had been found in the case, and Stevens was being held, with his bail set at $1.5 million.
\Cizik said Stevens had told him that he and Broadbent had fought the night of Broadbent's slaying, that Stevens blacked out and didn't remember anything until coming to in a living room chair and, then, discovered Broadbent.
Stevens had been scheduled for a routine court date Sept. 28.
Cizik said Stevens had a troubled life that included a criminal record and an escape from an Ohio jail when he was in his teens. But Broadbent's death was the most serious crime with which Stevens had ever been charged.
TIMOTHY FERRIS
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press
UNCASVILLE, Conn. -- The Connecticut Department of Correction is
investigating an apparent suicide at the Corrigan-Radgowsky
Correctional Center in Uncasville.
At approximately 7:15 p.m. Friday, correction staff found Timothy
Ferris, 45, of Brooklyn unresponsive in his cell. He had a bed sheet
tied around his neck with the other end tied to the upper bunk.
He was administered emergency and lifesaving measures and transported
to Backus Hospital in Norwich. He was pronounced dead at about 8 p.m.
Ferris was jailed April 5 on a charge or larceny in the first degree.
The manner and cause of death will be determined by the state medical
examiner's office. The Connecticut state police and the correction
department are investigating.
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June 15, 2004
Stamford Advocate
Courant Staff Writer
Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
September 21 2005
April 9, 2005, 5:47 PM EDT
"Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal"
Factor 8 Documentary website
along with the urls to the linked pages.
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(Prison Reform Unity Project) site owned by
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