Inmate Dies After Deputy Finds Him Hanging in Jail Cell

Sign up for the Canton-Sixes Patch newsletter!

---

Canton, GA - A man charged with stabbing his roommate last week has been pronounced dead after he was found unresponsive in his cell at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center.

A deputy with the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office was conducting cell checks Monday afternoon and located Canton resident Richard James Sheriff, 61, “hanging from a bed sheet from a bed in his cell,” sheriff’s office spokesperson Lt. Jay Baker said late Monday evening.

Baker stated the deputy “immediately” removed the sheet and began performing life saving measures on Sheriff, who was transported to Northside Hospital-Cherokee where he was later pronounced dead.

Sheriff was charged with aggravated assault in the Jan. 2 stabbing of fellow Canton resident Claudia Santizo.

No other inmates were in the cell at the time of the incident, Baker said. As in all in-custody deaths, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has been called in to investigate the incident.

Monday’s incident is the fourth in which inmates have been found unresponsive or dead while in custody since late 2014.

Jose Castillo-Ramirez, 32, of Canton was pronounced dead in July 2015 at Northside Hospital-Cherokee after he was found hanging from a bed sheet in his cell.

Ellenwood resident Demetrie Jones, 32, “most likely died from complications of his medical condition,” Baker previously told Patch in December 2014.

Jones, who had been booked into the facility on a probation violation charge, had “multiple medical conditions” that required him to be under the care of the jail’s Medical Unit, Baker previously said.

Bobby Kilgore, 71, a resident of Palmetto, also died in November 2014 after he was also in custody on a probation violation charge. The sheriff’s office previously told Patch that Kilgore had a medical condition that also required him to be housed in the facility’s Medical Unit and was under the care of the jail’s medical staff.

Return to Patch for updates.

---

Image: Richard James Sheriff. Credit: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office