Federal suit filed over jail suicide

MUNCIE – Attorneys will gather in early March to see whether a settlement can be reached to resolve a federal lawsuit over an inmate’s suicide in the Delaware County jail.

Ashley Lee Myers, 31, was found hanging in a cell in the jail’s intake area on Oct. 24, 2014. He was pronounced dead after being taken by ambulance to IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital.

Myers, the target of a warrant stemming from a child-support case, had led police on a brief car and foot chase before being arrested a few hours before his death.

In a U.S. District Court lawsuit, the representatives of the Muncie man’s estate, John and Carol Myers, allege:

• Myers told a jail intake officer he had ingested heroin.
• Jail personnel failed to monitor Myers after he was placed in a holding cell at 1:40 p.m. that day. He was found hanging, from a T-shirt, about 4:45 p.m. The suit states he had “already been hanging for about 55 minutes” at that point.
• Myers displayed “obvious signs and symptoms of withdrawal from heroin which put him at a risk for suicide.”

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Stephen Wagner of Carmel and Monica Humphrey of Kokomo, names then-Sheriff Mike Scroggins, longtime Deputy Bret McCord and four jail officers as defendants.

It was filed last June 1, two weeks before Scroggins died of a sudden illness at age 52.

His successor as sheriff, Ray Dudley, acknowledged Friday he had “inherited” the suit, and would be asked to sign off on any settlement if one is reached. The settlement conference is set for March 8.

McCord, who has since retired, is identified as the jail’s commander in the lawsuit. However, Scroggins had placed McCord in that position in the wake of Myers’ death.

In January 2015, Scroggins told The Star Press that two corrections officers had resigned while an internal investigation of the death was still under way. He suggested he would likely have otherwise pursued their dismissals.

A third jail employee was placed on administrative leave and later reprimanded, he said.

Dudley said the height of privacy walls in the jail’s holding cells was reduced after Myers’ suicide.

He also said he and the deputy he appointed as jail commander, Rick Richman, have since changed “operating procedures” in a further bid to thwart suicide attempts by prisoners.

The suit accused of the defendants of “callous and reckless indifference,” and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

Delaware County Coroner Scott Hahn said while tests showed he had earlier used heroin, Myers had more recently ingested a potentially lethal amount of methamphetamine before being arrested.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.