I-TEAM: Dying for help | Mental illness behind bars
WARNING: SOME OF THE IMAGES YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE ARE HEART-BREAKING AND DISTURBING. PLEASE TAKE CARE WHEN WATCHING.
BAMBERG, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Alan Thibodeau was behind bars at the Bamberg County Detention Center for almost five months.
During that time, he lost nearly 80 pounds and eventually also lost his life.
He was not supposed to be behind bars.
A judge ordered him to be sent to a mental health facility, but Thibodeau never made it. Alan Thibodeau died at a hospital days before he was finally set to be transferred.
The hospital staff saw what they believed were signs of neglect in Thibodeau during the time he was in the custody of Bamberg County’s Detention Center.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) opened an investigation, but the I-TEAM uncovered no one was ever held able for his death.
SLED closed the case without charging anyone with any crime associated with Thibodeau’s death.
So far, the I-TEAM has not found where any jail employee was disciplined in any way following Alan’s death.
Those questioned in the state investigation instead allude to fault with Thibodeau’s family hundreds of miles away in Virginia.
BODY CAM VIDEOS SHED LIGHT ON ALAN THIBODEAU’S CONDITION
Bamberg County deputies were called to the detention center on July 10, 2022, when jail staff found Alan Thibodeau unresponsive in his cell. With the ambulance on the way, deputies had tasers ready when they went to get him out of his cell.
Instead, Thibodeau was too weak to walk or even sit up. His emaciated body looked more like a skeleton than a 51-year-old man.
A deputy’s body-worn camera captured all of it.
A deputy’s body-worn camera also captured video of Thibodeau the night he was arrested.
He was charged with burglary after itting he broke into a woman’s home on a cold night for a warm place to stay. Deputies found him lying in a bed.
Comparing the two videos – taken around five months apart – it’s difficult to realize both are the same man.
His decline is that dramatic.
The I-TEAM sat down with Thibodeau’s family at a family home in Virginia and also spoke with two of Alan’s close friends.
What they saw on the body camera video brought Karen Bradie and Michael George to tears.
THE PUBLIC WASN’T SUPPOSED TO SEE THE VIDEO
“If somebody would have just told me, I just wouldn’t have believed how bad it was,” said Karen Bradie.
As difficult as it was for Karen and Michael to see the condition of their friend on video, they almost didn’t get the chance.
Law enforcement’s body camera video is not subject to Freedom of Information Act laws in the state of South Carolina, so, technically, this isn’t video they or the public is supposed to see. The only reason all of this came to light is because doctors and nurses at the hospital where Alan later died spoke up by reporting concerns Thibodeau was neglected at the Bamberg County Detention Center.
That’s when Thibodeau’s family knew they needed a lawyer’s help to get information.
Without a subpoena, all this would have remained in the dark.
DAYS AWAY FROM BEING TRANSFERRED
The Bamberg County Detention Center has its own nurses and medical team, but documents show Thibodeau never got any medication for diabetes, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.
Shortly after Bamberg County deputies arrived at the detention center to help get Alan out of his cell so medical personnel could load him in their ambulance, a member of the jail staff warned them he’s in bad shape.
She asks the deputies not to “judge” them. She then tells deputies Alan is about to be transferred.
“He’s leaving Tuesday, but if he’s like that, they’re not going to even take him,” the jailer said.
Alan was supposed to be in a mental health facility. The South Carolina Department of Mental Health deemed him incompetent to stand trial during a court-ordered evaluation.
EARLIER COVERAGE:
- I-TEAM: Dying for help: how a man’s mental illness in a local jail was his death sentence
- Bamberg County sued after mental health patient wastes
- Family speaks for first time on Bamberg County negligence lawsuit
SLOW PROCESS TO GET ALAN THIBODEAU HELP
The process to get Alan to a mental health facility had been painfully slow. He was arrested on February 14, 2022.
Days later, an email from his brother shows the detention center was made aware of Alan Thibodeau’s mental illness.
The South Carolina Department of Mental Health (SCDMH) Forensic Evaluation Service received the court order for his evaluation on March 22, 2022 — more than a month later.
That evaluation did not happen until April 13, 2022. By that time, Alan had been in jail for two months with no medication.
Court documents show the judge in his case ruled on April 19, 2022 that Thibodeau was incompetent to stand trial.
Then, it appears nothing happened for a month.
Documents show SCDMD marked “received” on the judge’s order on May 17, 2022.
On July 8, 2022, the Bamberg County Detention received an email the SCDMH had space available for Thibodeau and that he should be transported to Columbia.
He never made it there.
NOT THE ONLY ONE?
Body camera footage reveals Alan Thibodeau doesn’t appear to be the only inmate to not get adequate medical care at the Bamberg County Detention Center.
On the body camera related to this case, a jailer tells deputies about the last time an inmate was sent out for mental health care.
“They wouldn’t take him because he was like that,” the jailer said on body camera video. “But he wasn’t as worse as him, so they wouldn’t take him.”
It could appear the question isn’t if other inmates like Alan had delays in medical care, but how many?
SOUTHERN HEALTH PARTNERS
Southern Health Partners oversees medical care at the Bamberg County Detention Center.
It’s also the contracted company in Aiken, Edgefield and Barnwell counties.
Overall, Southern Health Partners touts on its website that it has contracts in more than 240 correctional facilities in 14 states.
It is a private, for-profit company, paid for by taxpayers.
In counties surrounding the Aiken area, the I-TEAM found Southern Health Partners listed on more than 20 wrongful death and medical malpractice lawsuits. A search of the South Carolina courts website shows 16 lawsuits in Aiken County, three in Barnwell County, three in Edgefield County and two in Bamberg County.
The Thibodeau family is suing Southern Health Partners in South Carolina State Court, with another lawsuit in federal court where Southern Health Partners is also listed on more than 1,000 other cases.
SLED AGENTS LIKELY ALSO KNOW ALAN THIBODEAU ISN’T ALONE
According to the report by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), agents reviewed body cam.
It’s listed as an attachment in the SLED report.
That means investigators had access to the same clip where jailers reference they were unable to transfer another inmate before to a mental health facility.
SLED agents fail to note this in their report.
Documents show there is no indication investigators asked who this inmate is or investigated why potentially an earlier inmate also wasn’t healthy enough to be sent to a mental health facility.
SLED failed to release any of these attachments under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act request sought by the I-TEAM.
SLED FAILS TO INTERVIEW FAMILY
While the report shows it spoke to or received statements from the jail staff who saw Thibodeau almost daily, the report shows SLED did not interview any of Alan Thibodeau’s family at any part of its investigation.
However, throughout its report, SLED agents repeatedly refer to comments made by the jail staff who are part of the investigation into Alan Thibodeau’s “neglect,” noting family “did not want him back” and “refused to help” or wouldn’t “provide information.”
The I-TEAM found multiple references on the body camera where deputies tell jail staff, doctors and nurses at the hospital that the Bamberg County Sheriff’s Office was willing to drop Alan’s charges if his family was willing to come to Bamberg and pick him up, but the family “didn’t want him.”
Again, no one from SLED checked with the family about this, but the I-TEAM did.
Larry and Ed Thibodeau tell the I-TEAM that no state investigator ever ed them.
The state investigation also does not show where SLED agents made a single phone call to Alan’s family.
If they had, they would have learned Alan Thibodeau had recently signed himself out of a mental facility in Virginia.
“We’re brothers, right, but we have no guardianship over him,” said Larry Thibodeau.
Even when ordered to stay in the hospital, Alan could leave after one week.
Coming back to Virginia might mean the cycle would repeat.
“Why would we go and say, ‘We’re going to do something and take you out of that potential way to get better, right? Get into a hospital, and get you on your meds again?,’” asked Ed Thibodeau.
The brothers say they felt their only option was letting their brother get court-ordered help, hoping he could get well enough to face his charges.
“MANY OF THE STATEMENTS IN THE SLED FILE ARE INACCURATE”
Alan Thibodeau’s family tells the I-TEAM that many of the statements in the SLED file are inaccurate with respect to their communication with the detention center staff.
In a statement, the family said the following: “We take offense to the insinuations throughout the statements in the SLED report that we did not inform jail staff of our brother’s condition. Beginning on the date of Alan’s initial bond hearing, we ensured that a social worker from Alan’s last hospitalization was present to provide the jail with a detailed medical history. During our subsequent conversations with jail staff, we made sure that they were all fully aware that Alan suffered from schizophrenia and diabetes and needed medications to survive. We relayed this information multiple times to Alan’s public defender. All of this information, including his full medical history and list of prescribed medications were included in the forensic evaluation report from April of 2022.”
However, the SLED report states specific people — Detention Center Captain Latarcha Wilson, Lt. Ashley Woods, Corporal Patrice Hutton and Southern Health Partners nurse Karen Hughes — tried to get medical information from the family about Alan, but the family refused to provide it.
The family says none of this is true.
“We were never ed by any of these people requesting information on Alan’s medical history,” the family said.
“Of these four individuals, our family only had with one, Lt Woods, but not related to any request/need for information,” said Ed Thibodeau.
“I made several attempts to reach out to Lt. Woods from the date after the bond hearing (approx 2/16/22 - 2/18/22) to check on Alan’s condition, and to try and find out if she had any additional information on Alan’s medical evaluation or what they would be doing for his meds.”
The I-TEAM obtained a copy of that email sent just days after Alan’s arrest. In it, Ed warns detention staff that the situation is “dangerous and potentially life-threatening” if Alan doesn’t take his medication.
The South Carolina Department of Mental Health also had a long list of his medications when the court ordered a mental evaluation.
The SLED report makes no mention of that, either.
The SLED report does say Bamberg County Detention Center Officer Billy Coggins “stated that one of the family said that Thibodeau was now South Carolina’s mental health problem.”
“No. He’s lying,” writes the family in an email when asked about this. “None of our family ever spoke with him. Nor did we say that to any of the jail staff.”
WHY SLED INVESTIGATED
SLED doesn’t seem to question a conflict of interest by relying heavily on jail staff, nor does SLED ever question the narrative provided by the staff on Alan’s family.
Still, it’s important to what triggered the SLED investigation in the first place — a concern of neglect when Alan was behind bars, not why he was still there.
“Because at the end of the day, that’s really what it was. Just treat them humanely, and we might not be here today,” said Larry.
Instead, Alan Thibodeau might be here today.
But even in death, brothers Larry and Ed and friends Michael and Karen say Alan is living on in the fight to help other inmates.
“This can never happen to somebody you love,” said Michael. “And it did.”
READ THE FULL SLED REPORT
FULL THIBODEAU FAMILY STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO SLED REPORT
“We patiently waited nearly a year and half for the SLED report. Unfortunately, the SLED report answers little, while simultaneously raising several new and troubling concerns. We are gravely disappointed by SLED’s failure to speak with us at all about our brother or our communications with the Bamberg County Detention Center staff, despite our offers and desire to talk.
Many of the statements in the SLED file are inaccurate and totally incongruent with the realities of what transpired with respect to our communications with the Detention Center’s staff. We take offense to the insinuations throughout the statements in the SLED report that we did not inform jail staff of our brother’s condition.
Beginning on the date of Alan’s initial bond hearing, we ensured that a social worker from Alan’s last hospitalization was present to provide the jail with a detailed medical history. During our subsequent conversations with jail staff, we made sure that they were all fully aware that Alan suffered from schizophrenia and diabetes and needed medications to survive.
We relayed this information multiple times to Alan’s public defender. All of this information, including his full medical history and list of prescribed medications were included in the forensic evaluation report from April of 2022. There is also no mention of the fact that a South Carolina Judge indicated that our brother would be denied bond for his own safety so that he could be evaluated by mental health professionals and would remain safely in the custody of the “nice people at the jail” until that could happen.
When the evaluation finally happened many months after the hearing at which bond was denied, it was determined that Alan required inpatient hospitalization in a mental health hospital for stabilization.
The insinuation contained in the report that we simply could have picked Alan up when he was being held without bond is ridiculous.
We are equally troubled by what is not in the SLED report. The SLED report is completely devoid of any reference to the video recordings of Alan being tased or extracted from his cell, unconscious emaciated, and covered in feces.
It does not address the correctional officer’s statement that Alan was tased every time he left his cell. The SLED report does not mention Alan’s extreme weight loss.
The SLED report makes no mention of Alan’s lack of access to medications, including his insulin.
It doesn’t appear that anyone from Lexington Medical Center—whose social worker specifically requested the SLED investigation—was interviewed nor was the pathologist who performed our brother’s autopsy.
Alan entered this jail physically healthy. Detention Center staff watched our brother slowly and inhumanly perish while he was in their custody and supposed to be under their care. Given the circumstances under which Alan lost his life, we expected a complete and thorough investigation.
In our opinion the SLED report amounts to nothing more than the chronicling of a cursory, “check the box” investigation.
Sadly, in our view, without ability, this will continue to happen.”
More of the investigation
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