John Jefferson
Right: Anthony Mitchell. Left: Jailers take Mitchell to the hospital from the Walker County Jail (Wiggins Childs Pantazis Fisher Goldfarb, LLC.).
Two Alabama jailers have admitted to letting an inmate freeze to death while housed naked in a filthy jail cell without running water, a bed or a toilet for two weeks.
According to court documents filed on Monday, Heather Lasha Craig and Bailey Clark Ganey have agreed to admit to their roles in the death of Anthony Mitchell, 33. Craig pleaded guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law. Ganey pleaded guilty to conspiracy against rights, according to their plea agreements.
The series of events leading to Mitchell’s death began on Jan. 12, 2023, when he was arrested for shooting at deputies responding to his home on a mental health welfare check, court documents said.
He was taken to the Walker County Jail and housed in a cell called BK5 without a sink, toilet, access to running water, or a raised platform to be used as a bed, court documents said. Detainees held in BK5 depend on officers to escort them to a toilet or shower and rely on officers to bring them water.
“BK5 was notoriously cold during winter months and the temperature on the bare cement floor was even colder,” court documents said.
According to his plea agreement, Ganey thought Mitchell should have been taken to a hospital or mental health facility, given the detainee had trouble standing, let alone walking from a cop car to the jail. Mitchell was also disoriented, non-combative, and could not follow instructions, observations that were obvious to all who took part in escorting Mitchell, identified in court documents as Individual #1, to the lockup.
“Nonetheless, defendant Ganey and several of his co-conspirators expressed their hostility towards Individual #1 and their indifference to his wellbeing,” the document said.
The night he was booked, they made comments about him, such as he should have been killed because he shot at deputies rather than being brought to the jail, court documents said.
Mitchell showed frequent severe mental health symptoms, the document said. He talked incoherently about “demons” and “portals,” and he was often naked and covered in feces, lying on the cement floor of a cell littered with food and garbage and without a mat or blanket for the entire duration of his incarceration.
Temperatures were colder than other areas of the jail, partly because it had an exterior wall, and temperatures in Walker County during the time Mitchell was there dipped to 20 degrees at times.
Ganey, who had worked at the jail for about two years then, recognized the conditions were “cruel and without justification,” the document said.
Even though Mitchell was deteriorating over those two weeks, other jailers claimed that he had been “too combative” to receive medical care, thereby preventing medical and mental health professionals from evaluating his needs. Ganey, who’d then been trying to ingratiate himself with his supervisors, did not make any effort to obtain medical or mental health care for Mitchell either.
Craig also noticed that Mitchell needed medical intervention, but she didn’t speak out because she didn’t want to be labeled a “snitch,” her plea agreement said.
The night before he died, Ganey found Mitchell lying on the floor, largely unresponsive, only able to raise his head and mutter incoherently, and not responding to Ganey’s efforts to get him to get himself up.
“In response, defendant Ganey expressed frustration at Individual #1, dismissing his obvious needs and took no steps to aid him,” the document said.
Hours later, on the morning of Jan. 26, 2023, Mitchell was taken to a hospital, where he died from hypothermia and sepsis, according to his death certificate. His core body temperature was 72 degrees, a temperature incompatible with life.
Former correctional officer Joshua Jones has also pleaded guilty in the case.
Jon Goldfarb, a Mitchell family attorney who filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in the case, told local CBS affiliate WIAT that the family was shocked to see Jones admitted in his plea agreement that “Collectively we did it. We killed him.”
A fourth correctional officer, Karen Kelly, agreed to plead guilty for her “minimal role” in Mitchell’s death.
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