WilCo Sued After Mentally Ill Inmate's Death

Caution: Some details contained in this story may be too graphic for some readers. — Editor

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX — The family of a mentally ill inmate has sued Williamson County, alleging in a lawsuit that the man died after not receiving needed medical care while in custody at the county jail.

Members of the Williamson County Commissioners Court discussed the litigation behind closed doors during the executive session portion of their Tuesday meeting as allowed under public meetings provisions. The lawsuit was tacked onto a long list of some five dozen discussion items on the commissioners' agenda related to litigation and pending real estate transactions.

While the accusations weren't discussed out in the open, the lawsuit — a copy of which was obtained by Patch — lays bare the agonizing details forming the complaint. Filed on Nov. 26, the lawsuit stems from the jailing last year of Daniel McCoy, a detainee with known psychological disorders, according to the court document. The man died in April 2018 after being held in custody for several months at the Williamson County Jail, according to the suit.

"This is a case of tragic denial of medical and mental health care desperately needed by Daniel McCoy, a pre-trial detainee found psychologically incompetent to stand trial," attorneys wrote in their original complaint representing the dead man's mother, Amanda McCoy, who filed the lawsuit. "Jailers moved Mr. McCoy from a vomit-filled cell to another cell and allowed him to die."

Daniel McCoy booking photo via Williamson County Jail records.

Attorneys from the Dallas-based Law Offices of Dean Malone P.C. allege "Williamson County policies, practices and customs" resulted in McCoy not receiving needed medical care before his death. "Defendants' deliberate indifference and objective unreasonableness caused Mr. McCoy's suffering and unnecessary death," the lawyers concluded.

In addition to Williamson County, the suit names jailer Bradley R. Brown and sergeants Adrian D. Nira, Carlos A. Paniagua and Ty R. Roggenkamp as defendants. The suit alleges defendants were aware McCoy was on a waiting list to be housed at the North Texas State Hospital in Vernon, Texas, where a bed would not be available for another eight months.

"Thus, Williamson County chose to continue to incarcerate Daniel in essentially in a metal box, knowing that he had severe psychiatric issues and needed treatment at a different facility," the lawsuit reads. From there, the lawsuit makes for rough reading as it details in harrowing detail the last, desperate days of a mentally ill man's life behind bars — far from his mother and siblings who filed the suit now seeking to recover funeral expenses and unspecified punitive damages.

By April 13, 2018, jailers were called to McCoy's cell after reports of him having vomited. Lawyers noted the notes from a mental health professional are inconsistent with events described by jailers, who told the mental health professional that McCoy was "sleeping hard" and "did not want to wake up," according to the suit.

"Daniel was not 'sleeping hard,' " lawyers contend in the lawsuit. "He was in the last few hours of his life absent emergency medical treatment. Daniel could not stand on his own, sit on his own, and/or communicate using even a single word. Daniel was deathly ill and was not simply sleeping. All defendants possessed this information."

The suit notes a 227th District Court judge in Williamson County had previously signed an order confirming McCoy's incompetency to stand trial. As a result, the judge ordered the man was to be confined instead to the maximum security unit of Austin State Hospital or other facility designated by the Department of State Health Services for a period not to exceed 120 days — ordering Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody to ensure McCoy be delivered to such a facility. The order was ignored, according to the suit.

In one Oct. 10, 2017, an incident report filed by jailer Ariel Henrich detailed in the litigation, the county employee heard McCoy saying "tell them to stop" referring to unspecified "demons." After replying in the affirmative when asked if the demons were telling McCoy to hurt others and himself, McCoy was outfitted with a suicide smock before being placed in a restraint chair, the plaintiffs contend.

In the weeks following, as detailed in the lawsuit, McCoy would bang his head against the wall as he was kept behind bars. By February 2018, his behavior grew increasingly more bizarre, according to the lawsuit, yielding evidence of his mental illness. In one instance, McCoy is said to have stood naked at his cell door, all the while making vulgar sexual comments to an officer.

Attorneys argue such increasingly disturbing behavior provided evidence as to his mental state, and jailers were "...fully aware of Daniel’s bizarre, psychotic behavior, over several months. They knew that he should not be incarcerated in the jail but instead should have been transferred to an appropriate mental health facility. Nevertheless, they continued to house Daniel in a cell which was essentially a metal box, with a single window. This increased Daniel’s anxiety, anti-social behavior, psychotic episodes, and mental anguish and emotional distress."

By 4:30 a.m. on April 13, 2018, McCoy would be found unresponsive. A member of the Texas Rangers noted during a subsequent investigation on June 25, 2018, that “The constant theme among witnesses is that D. McCoy was not mentally stable and this was evidenced by witness statements reporting that D. McCoy was eating his own excrement, drinking of his own bodily fluids, and eating scum and bacteria from the toilet located in his cell.”

Despite knowing this information in the days and weeks before McCoy's death, lawyers contend, county employees failed to act in having him transferred to a more appropriate treatment facility. McCoy's died at 6:11 p.m. on April 18, 2018, when he was removed from life support, according to the lawsuit.

Patricia Gutierrez, the spokesperson for the Williamson County Sheriff's Office, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. County spokesperson Connie Odom emailed late Wednesday that she was unable to comment on ongoing litigation.

Read the full lawsuit.