When somebody dies in jail or jail, the circumstances surrounding their dying are sometimes shrouded in secrecy. Together with grief, their family members are left with fundamental, unanswered questions.
Accessing data might be tough. And facility employees could refuse to talk. The silence permits medical neglect, violence or different types of misconduct to stay hidden. Within the absence of solutions, households typically must develop into detectives — discovering artistic methods to study 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 informed 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 fastidiously and protecting a blood strain cuff in his front room. “He would at all times say he was like Benjamin Button, growing older 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 dying 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 12 months. After his launch, he hoped to lastly make his longtime dream come true by shifting to New York, the place Courtney additionally lives.
On March 15, 2025, an affiliate warden on the jail referred to 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 complete post-mortem report and had turned to a Fb group for solutions.
The report, which she acquired later that month, dominated his dying 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, together 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 dying that March — we maintained fixed contact. He was routinely telling me that he wasn’t getting his treatment. It was both the unsuitable type, or he didn’t get it when he was purported 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, so 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 on daily basis. As soon as we obtained again involved — on Valentine’s Day — he informed me that he had his massive toe amputated. He was in excessive ache. My understanding is, when you might have points together with your toes, that’s like a facet impact of diabetes being mismanaged.
When one of many affiliate wardens referred to 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 needed to know if he suffered, too.
I turned to a Fb group for solutions. I discovered a non-public 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; it’s a must to show that you’ve a liked one incarcerated at Excessive Desert State Jail.
Within the group, folks publish 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 dying in March, somebody within the Fb group posted a few man with diabetes who had handed away on the jail. I feel they had been making an attempt to establish if anybody within the group was associated to the one that died. It was my dad that they had been speaking about.
“That is my dad. Does anyone have any info that they might share?” I wrote.
A number of folks even messaged me privately to say they’d 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’d hit should you wanted assist. Somebody shared that my dad had rung it a number of occasions and no one answered. The boys he was incarcerated with knew that he was scuffling with diabetes.
I didn’t know in regards to the “man down” button, and I felt like that was one thing that might be verified. I might suppose {that a} jail would have some type 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 could 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 Info 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 informed 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 response to the wrongful dying lawsuit that his mother and father settled in 2022.
The 34-year-old beginner 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 midst of the evening.
Justin was doubtless struggling a psychological well being disaster, in response to 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 swimsuit.
Inside 15 hours of his keep, Justin was in his cell bare, refusing dinner and incoherently taunting a deputy who, in response to the lawsuit, caught a Taser into his meals slot and referred to as for his door to be opened. Justin ran out, and a number of 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 all in favour of folks and nature, and he was planning to get into the hashish business. After I didn’t hear from him the morning after he left for Colorado together with his canine, Marley, I obtained nervous.
That afternoon, round midday, a household in Kentucky referred to as me; they’d discovered Marley working round by herself, and my quantity was on her tag. I then referred to 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 referred to as the state police.
“Oh, yeah, we discovered him,” I bear in mind them telling me. “He’s at this jail.”
I referred to 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 referred to as into the night.
My oldest son and I set off at 8 a.m. the subsequent morning to go decide up Marley. We had been about 5 hours into the six-hour drive from Virginia when officers referred to as and stated [something like], “There’s been an incident, and you should come now.” It was like an apologetic sort of factor.
After I first noticed Justin within the hospital in Lexington, he was bruised. He regarded like he had a grapefruit on the facet of his head from the swelling. He was on life assist, so I couldn’t ask him what occurred.
For [most of] his 34 years of life, I knew the whole lot that occurred to him. I couldn’t shut the guide, not realizing. I needed to have the ability to inform his buddies what occurred. It will have been simpler if he had died in a automobile 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 centered. It was like I used to be placing collectively a puzzle with no image.
I referred to 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 referred to as the folks on the home the place he knocked on the door at about 1 a.m.; he was most likely on the lookout for Marley. They despatched me their dwelling safety video displaying Justin knocking after which sort of backing away. I referred to as the hospital and obtained a half-inch-thick stack of paperwork. I referred to as the coroner each week, and I bear in mind speaking to an previous 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 after I was making cellphone calls or filling out a type to request data.
I referred to as the jail and requested them for his or her surveillance movies of what occurred to Justin, and so they 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 wanted 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 swimsuit.
“Completely not,” I bear in mind telling them.
I needed their names to be there in perpetuity. I didn’t need them to overlook. 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 tons of of occasions. Throughout his deposition, he was requested if he would do something completely 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 appears like somebody obtained away with hurting somebody in my household.”
By LaDawna Hill, as informed 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 often and walked quite a bit — 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 dying because of cardiomyopathy. His household remains to be ready on footage from the jail of his final hours.
Nathan Kinney.
Nathan was a great individual. He had two youngsters, ages 1 and a pair of, and he was an ideal father. Because the self-taught fixer of our household, he would study the whole lot from YouTube, then repair your complete home and put an engine in your automobile.
Nathan was additionally very energetic. He was at all times enjoying basketball. He by no means even had a automobile till he obtained 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 purported to be cameras throughout that jail. I reached out to lots of people when it first occurred, together with completely different information organizations and nonprofits — and nobody obtained 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 speak to it on daily basis, I turned to it when nobody else had solutions. When folks die on the jail, how do folks attempt to get info? I wrote.
I used ChatGPT to give you the questions I wanted to ask the county and an lawyer. I informed ChatGPT what I knew about Nathan’s dying:
He collapsed whereas enjoying basketball within the health club. 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 health club. I feel the correctional officers uncared for my brother.
“If I get a lawyer,” I needed to know, “what are the issues that I should 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 informed 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 informed 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 wakened the day he died to the second he collapsed within the health club. 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 info. The jail is thrashing across the bush with the footage. It appears like somebody obtained away with hurting somebody in my household.
I needed to start out a motion. I needed to have a press convention and name for transparency. I had folks throughout social media backing me up, however the lawyer stated to attend till we now have extra info.
So, now we wait.
In response to The Marshall Mission’s fact-checking questions on when and the place Kinney died, the Cuyahoga County Govt’s communications director acknowledged, “In keeping 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 Mission states that Kinney was in “full cardiopulmonary arrest,” by the point he entered the MetroHealth emergency room.
When The Marshall Mission requested about video footage from the jail not being offered to Kinney’s household, the communications director acknowledged that they “should not have a file of the household requesting video footage. We perceive how necessary this matter is to the household, and we are able to present the video footage in accordance with public data legal guidelines and our insurance policies.”
The Marshall Mission 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 can be despatched at a later date.”
