When somebody dies in jail or jail, the circumstances surrounding their loss of life are sometimes shrouded in secrecy. Together with grief, their family members are left with primary, unanswered questions.
Accessing data will be troublesome. And facility employees might refuse to talk. The silence permits medical neglect, violence or different types of misconduct to stay hidden. Within the absence of solutions, households usually must develop into detectives — discovering inventive methods to be taught what occurred to their liked one.
In these as-told-to’s, edited for size and readability, three ladies element their seek for solutions. One describes her course of as “placing collectively a puzzle with no image.”
“I used to be making it very clear that my dad had somebody.”
By Courtney Crosby, as instructed to Aala Abdullahi
Courtney Crosby remembers her father, Craig, as somebody who defied age. At 55, he prided himself on being lively, managing his diabetes rigorously and preserving a blood stress cuff in his lounge. “He would at all times say he was like Benjamin Button, ageing in reverse,” she recalled.
The final time Courtney and her father frolicked, it was at his house in Atlantic Metropolis. She remembers him dropping to the bottom abruptly to do pushups: “So youthful and so vigorous and vitality, that’s how I bear in mind him,” she stated.
That picture made his loss of life inside Nevada’s Excessive Desert State Jail particularly arduous to just accept. Craig was serving a brief sentence for a decade-old DUI and was solely anticipated to be there for a yr. After his launch, he hoped to lastly make his longtime dream come true by transferring to New York, the place Courtney additionally lives.
On March 15, 2025, an affiliate warden on the jail known as Courtney to inform her that her father had died of pure causes. On the time of our interview in early June, she had not but acquired the total post-mortem report and had turned to a Fb group for solutions.
The report, which she acquired later that month, dominated his loss of life an accident. However Courtney says she nonetheless has questions: “If it was an accident, does that imply it might have been prevented?” And, “Was he scared?”
Craig Crosby, proper, along with his daughter, Courtney.
My father was very into his well being, and he was managing his diabetes effective earlier than he went to jail. All through his quick incarceration — about 5 months from his sentencing in October till his loss of life that March — we maintained fixed contact. He was routinely telling me that he wasn’t getting his treatment. It was both the incorrect sort, or he didn’t get it when he was presupposed to have it. I used to be calling the ability’s household liaison, actively advocating for him to obtain his treatment. I’m a public defender, in order that they didn’t intimidate me. I used to be making it very clear that my dad had somebody. It was like, I’m on it. I’m watching.
There was a span of time the place I didn’t hear from him for like, two weeks, which was actually uncommon, as a result of he was calling me like day by day. As soon as we received again in touch — on Valentine’s Day — he instructed me that he had his large toe amputated. He was in excessive ache. My understanding is, when you’ve points along with your toes, that’s like a facet impact of diabetes being mismanaged.
When one of many affiliate wardens known as on March 15 to inform me my father handed away early within the morning. I used to be flooded with questions: How did it occur? Was it abrupt? Was he present in mattress? Was he asleep? Was he discovered on the ground? Did he hit one thing on the way in which down?
He had talked about his bunkie earlier than, however they had been saying he was alone. I discovered that uncommon.
I wished to know if he suffered, too.
I turned to a Fb group for solutions. I discovered a personal group meant for the household of individuals incarcerated on the jail the place my father died. There’s a rigorous course of for being accepted; you need to show that you’ve a liked one incarcerated at Excessive Desert State Jail.
Within the group, individuals submit routine questions on a regular basis: How do you set cash on somebody’s commissary? How do you ship somebody messages? What’s the visiting schedule? It’s like a mind hive.
4 days after my father’s loss of life in March, somebody within the Fb group posted a few man with diabetes who had handed away on the jail. I believe they had been making an attempt to establish if anybody within the group was associated to the one who died. It was my dad that they had been speaking about.
“That is my dad. Does anyone have any data that they might share?” I wrote.
Just a few individuals even messaged me privately to say they might ask their liked one in the event that they knew something about what occurred with my father, and report again.
The issues I heard helped information my subsequent steps, even when they had been simply rumors or rumour. I heard there was a “man down” button in each cell, which is an emergency button or bell you’ll hit if you happen to wanted assist. Somebody shared that my dad had rung it a number of occasions and no one answered. The lads he was incarcerated with knew that he was scuffling with diabetes.
I didn’t know concerning the “man down” button, and I felt like that was one thing that might be verified. I’d assume {that a} jail would have some kind of record-keeping for when a “man down” button is rang. It occurred to me that that is one thing an lawyer might request in discovery, so I flagged it to my lawyer that my dad might have rung the “man down” button a number of occasions.
All of this was very speculative, however my household and I had been actually determined to know the reality.
We nonetheless are.
The Nevada Division of Corrections Public Data Officer didn’t reply to fact-checking questions on emergency buttons in cells or about why Crosby was alone, and not using a cellmate current, when he died.
“It was soothing to place the puzzle collectively.”
By Jacqueline Ciccone, as instructed to Shannon Heffernan
Justin Ciccone died on Might 3, 2020, after deputies in Kentucky’s Rowan County Detention Heart tased, beat and choked him, in keeping with the wrongful loss of life lawsuit that his mother and father settled in 2022.
The 34-year-old novice photographer was driving from his household dwelling in Virginia to Colorado when he was detained in Morehead, Kent. He’d knocked on a stranger’s door in the course of the evening.
Justin was seemingly struggling a psychological well being disaster, in keeping with the lawsuit, which named Rowan County, its jailer and 6 deputies concerned within the incident. However police arrested him for public intoxication with out performing a sobriety take a look at. On the jail, deputies blocked a nurse from screening or treating him, says the go well with.
Inside 15 hours of his keep, Justin was in his cell bare, refusing dinner and incoherently taunting a deputy who, in keeping with the lawsuit, caught a Taser into his meals slot and known as for his door to be opened. Justin ran out, and several other deputies fatally assaulted him. A blood take a look at carried out an hour after the beating discovered no illicit medicine or alcohol in his system. His mom, Jacqueline, describes her investigation into the top of her center youngster’s life.
Justin Ciccone.
Justin was sort of the quiet one amongst my three sons. He was concerned about individuals and nature, and he was planning to get into the hashish business. Once I didn’t hear from him the morning after he left for Colorado along with his canine, Marley, I received nervous.
That afternoon, round midday, a household in Kentucky known as me; they’d discovered Marley operating round by herself, and my quantity was on her tag. I then known as Justin. After he didn’t reply, I checked out his Chime account and noticed that he’d gotten gasoline in Kentucky. From there, I known as the state police.
“Oh, yeah, we discovered him,” I bear in mind them telling me. “He’s at this jail.”
I known as [Rowan County jail] 5 occasions that day. And it was, “Oh no, he’s appearing out proper now. He’s too aggressive proper now to speak.” I known as into the night.
My oldest son and I set off at 8 a.m. the subsequent morning to go choose up Marley. We had been about 5 hours into the six-hour drive from Virginia when officers known as and stated [something like], “There’s been an incident, and it’s essential come now.” It was like an apologetic sort of factor.
Once I first noticed Justin within the hospital in Lexington, he was bruised. He seemed like he had a grapefruit on the facet of his head from the swelling. He was on life help, so I couldn’t ask him what occurred.
For [most of] his 34 years of life, I knew every thing that occurred to him. I couldn’t shut the e book, not realizing. I wished to have the ability to inform his mates what occurred. It will have been simpler if he had died in a automotive accident, as a result of at the least then I might say: That is what occurred.
The primary few months after he died, I felt that I wanted to gather all the data I might about his final days. I used to be so targeted. It was like I used to be placing collectively a puzzle with no image.
I known as the gasoline station, the place I noticed from financial institution data that he had paid for gasoline about an hour earlier than all this occurred. I known as the individuals on the home the place he knocked on the door at about 1 a.m.; he was most likely in search of Marley. They despatched me their dwelling safety video displaying Justin knocking after which sort of backing away. I known as the hospital and received a half-inch-thick stack of paperwork. I known as the coroner each week, and I bear in mind speaking to an outdated man on the coroner’s workplace to verify they despatched me the report.
It was soothing to place the puzzle collectively. It’s not like I wasn’t unhappy, however placing the items collectively stored me from crying once I was making cellphone calls or filling out a type to request data.
I known as the jail and requested them for his or her surveillance movies of what occurred to Justin, they usually simply despatched them to me. I by no means watched the movies, although; I don’t know if I’ll ever wish to. I do know sufficient from how the footage was described to me. Our lawyer stated that no one would have thought he was in his proper thoughts.
There was some extent it was clear we would have liked to speak to an lawyer. The lawyer for the officers who beat Justin determined to settle, however requested if they might take away the person names from the go well with.
“Completely not,” I bear in mind telling them.
I wished their names to be there in perpetuity. I didn’t need them to neglect. I didn’t need that to occur to anyone else.
After the lawsuit was over, I wrote one of many officers a letter. I could have learn and edited that letter a whole lot of occasions. Throughout his deposition, he was requested if he would do something totally different.
“No,” I bear in mind him saying.
It was a chilly feeling to know that. How would your mom really feel if this occurred to her youngster? I wrote. I simply wanted to get my anger out. I simply wanted to say: You probably did this.
“It looks like somebody received away with hurting somebody in my household.”
By LaDawna Hill, as instructed to Brittany Hailer
LaDawna Hill regarded her cousin Nathan Kinney as her brother. “There have been eight of us, and he was the youngest,” the Cleveland native stated. “All of us grew up collectively in the identical home.”
Kinney — who performed basketball usually and walked rather a lot — collapsed within the recreation room of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County Jail on March 6, 2025. A health worker dominated that the daddy of two had died from a sudden cardiac loss of life on account of cardiomyopathy. His household remains to be ready on footage from the jail of his final hours.
Nathan Kinney.
Nathan was a superb particular person. He had two youngsters, ages 1 and a pair of, and he was an excellent father. Because the self-taught fixer of our household, he would be taught every thing from YouTube, then repair your complete home and put an engine in your automotive.
Nathan was additionally very energetic. He was at all times enjoying basketball. He by no means even had a automotive till he received older, so he used to stroll on a regular basis. For him to even collapse like that in jail, when he was so wholesome? That simply didn’t make sense to me.
I knew there have been presupposed to be cameras throughout that jail. I reached out to lots of people when it first occurred, together with totally different information organizations and nonprofits — and nobody received again to me besides a journalist named Scott Noll. I wasn’t going to have the ability to sleep at evening till I discovered what occurred to my brother.
Since ChatGPT is aware of me so effectively as a result of I discuss to it day by day, I turned to it when nobody else had solutions. When individuals die on the jail, how do individuals attempt to get data? I wrote.
I used ChatGPT to provide you with the questions I wanted to ask the county and an lawyer. I instructed ChatGPT what I knew about Nathan’s loss of life:
He collapsed whereas enjoying basketball within the fitness center. The county stated they “instantly” transferred him to MetroHealth Medical Heart, the place he died. However males incarcerated on the jail contacted my mother and stated Nathan was foaming on the mouth, and he died there within the fitness center. I believe the correctional officers uncared for my brother.
“If I get a lawyer,” I wished to know, “what are the issues that I must be telling them? What ought to I be asking a lawyer to look out for?”
ChatGPT gave me an inventory.
“Be clear about what you need,” it instructed me.
ChatGPT stated I wanted proof, together with the surveillance footage from the day Nathan collapsed, the post-mortem report, the incident report and any bodycam footage or jail audio. It additionally instructed me to ask for a full, impartial investigation.
First, my mother went to the county to ask for the proof, however they gave her the runaround. They stated they might not give her footage from the jail. So, I reached out to a lawyer to submit a public data request on our behalf. We requested for the video of the second Nathan awoke the day he died to the second he collapsed within the fitness center. We additionally requested for emails for something to do with “Nathan Kinney.” The county nonetheless hasn’t given us what we requested.
We’ve been ready for months for data. The jail is thrashing across the bush with the footage. It looks like somebody received away with hurting somebody in my household.
I wished to start out a motion. I wished to have a press convention and name for transparency. I had individuals throughout social media backing me up, however the lawyer stated to attend till we have now extra data.
So, now we wait.
In response to The Marshall Undertaking’s fact-checking questions on when and the place Kinney died, the Cuyahoga County Government’s communications director acknowledged, “In line with the Medical Examiner’s Workplace, Nathan Kinney had a pulse when he was transported from the Cuyahoga County Corrections Heart to MetroHealth.”
The official Cuyahoga County health worker’s verdict obtained by The Marshall Undertaking states that Kinney was in “full cardiopulmonary arrest,” by the point he entered the MetroHealth emergency room.
When The Marshall Undertaking requested about video footage from the jail not being supplied to Kinney’s household, the communications director acknowledged that they “should not have a report of the household requesting video footage. We perceive how necessary this matter is to the household, and we will present the video footage in accordance with public data legal guidelines and our insurance policies.”
The Marshall Undertaking reviewed a number of data requests from the household’s lawyer to the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Division. In a single response, dated two days earlier than Kinney died, the company’s data supervisor acknowledged receipt of the request for “[a]ll video footage capturing Nathan Kinney on March 6, 2025 — together with however not restricted to any surveillance, hallway, body-camera and all recording gadgets in use that day,” and responded, “The request for video is being processed, and a response might be despatched at a later date.”
