A Mother’s Story
My name is Peggy.
On Feb 19, 2008 my son was found hanging from a stair railing at the Otero County Detention Center in Alamogordo NM.
For the last two and a half years, I have been trying to found out how this could have happened to my son.
We raised my son as a Christian in Alamogordo. He was very active in church. He was very popular in school. He ran track and played football. Of course he was the class clown but every body thought he was funny. My son started to change when he got his girlfriend pregnant, dropped out of high school and started using drugs. We didn’t know at the time but we knew he was changing. After his son was born we encouraged him to get his G.E.D. and go to Highland University in Las Vegas NM. He did one semester there. He said he got discouraged because he couldn’t play football until the following year so he left. We found out it was because he was not going to class on time. We moved back to Texas but my son stayed in NM. We had no idea some of the things that he was into until it was too late.
From there my son started getting into trouble with the law all the time. He was put on probation, violated that several times, put in jail for 6 months for a dirty urinalysis and violating his probation. Got out of jail and stayed in Carlsbad, where he continued to do drugs until he ended up in prison again. I believe for burglary that time. He told us he got a lighter sentence because he became an informant for the police in Carlsbad. He got arrested and again went back to prison. He was released in 2006 to my husband and me in Texas. He stayed there for four months. He asked his parole officer could he be transferred to Las Cruses where his wife was going to school. During all of this time my son never stopped doing drugs. I heard by then he was doing crack.
We didn’t want him to go to Las Cruses because he and his wife didn’t get along. They fought a lot. From what I heard she put a restraining order on him but she kept letting him back into the house. He jumped on her one day and wouldn’t leave until she called the police on him. The police and his parole officer told him to come in for questioning, but instead he went on the run for over a year. [The sad thing about all of this is since my son died my ex daughter in law told me she had called the police right before he died to drop the charges.] He was on the run for awhile. He went back to Alamogordo to be around his son, and started working at Subway. After he quit he went back to Subway around Feb3, 2008 and robbed them for $175.00. His girlfriend (who was also the manger of Subway) told me he walked into the store and said, “I’m sorry but I have to do this.” (She wasn’t there at the time). He was arrested the next day.
He called me the day after he was arrested, and told me he was going to become an informant. I asked him to please not do this. His girlfriend told me and I read it in the paper that they had a big drug bust after he was arrested. He said he was relieved that he had gotten arrested because he was tired of running, and for me not to worry about him. He called again on my birthday, which is the last time I talked to him.
The Sheriff’s Office investigated the incident. The sheriff, John Blansett is married to the Administrator of the jail, Virginia Blansett. I was told this is a conflict of interest.
The day my son died Administrator Virginia Blansett did not call me to tell me. She called a friend of mine and asked him to tell me. I called her right after that to ask her why didn’t she call me, and she said that he didn’t have me on his paper work. My phone has been the same since 2002. Plus his info is in the system from previous incarcerations with my name as person to notify in case of emergency. My son had tried to commit suicide while in prison in 2003. They called me. They put him on a suicide watch.
Why didn’t OCDC know that my son tried to commit suicide before? What is their Method of Screening Incoming Inmates at this jail?
I asked Administrator Virginia Blansett how this could have happened. She replied, “Well your son had anger problems, he had been running around here for over a week tearing up sheets, so we didn’t take him serious.”
Some of my questions are, why was he found outside his cell? Why was he running around so freely? Why did Virginia Blansett say she would release any public information to me so that we won’t have to get attorneys involved? Why were they knowingly allowing inmates to destroy state issued property by tearing up sheets on a daily basis to use for pull ups? That is a Violation of the Policies and Procedures of the jail. Isn’t the Board of Corrections supposed to do inspections to see if the jail is following the Policies and Procedures? If they do a daily inspection of the jail cells then why didn’t they reprimand and discipline him for destroying his sheets, because his bed was bare the day they found him. According to the Policies and Procedures of the jail OCDC had a responsibility to keep my son and all the other inmates safe, by properly training Detention Officers on the Policies and Procedures of the jail. Which is to Discipline, (Not Ignore) all inmates for destroying state issued property. As a result of their own negligence, my son is dead and other inmates could also be in danger.
OCDC should have trained their officers on the dangers of allowing inmates to tear up sheets for anything other than sleeping on, which in turn was used as a deadly weapon.
They failed to provide a safe environment for my son. So as a result they ignored all the signs of suicide. And that is why inmates didn’t notice any thing odd about his behavior according to police report. I believe that if they had not allowed the inmates to be tearing up sheets for pull ups the inmates would have reported it to the authorities.
My son wrote me a letter the day before he died. I know they read the letter because it had been opened and resealed with tape by the time I received it. He said he couldn’t eat, or sleep. He said he felt like God had left him. The Administrator sent me a tape recording of my son taking to his girlfriend on the day he died, in which he said that maybe the courts would send him to a drug rehab for his problem.
I read an article on line called, An Overview and Guide to Suicide Prevention. It talked about some of the signs of suicide, Previous Suicide Attempt, Loss of Appetite, Feelings of Hopelessness, Drug Withdrawal, Extreme Restlessness, or Pacing Up and Down, and Tearing Up Sheets. Wouldn’t you say my son had these signs? Why didn’t they check his files, then they would have seen the previous suicide attempt.
In the police report it says that on the tape that was recorded on the day he died his girlfriend told him that she was going to call OCDC and have him put on a suicide watch. I asked her did she do it and she said she did but they put her on hold for so long that she had to hang up because she was going to be late for work.
In the police report it says that my son sounded distraught over a telephone conversation with his girlfriend about her cheating on him. I know my son wouldn’t kill him self over someone he had only known for less than 3 months. It had to be something more serious, like drug withdrawals. I was told he was on crack and meth really bad before he was locked up. I heard that some of the inmates don’t get treatments for drug and alcohol withdrawals when they get to OCDC and it seems like my son was one of them
I called the Victims Advocates in Alamogordo to see if they could help me get info on my son’s death because I only had a one page police report on what happened to him then another one and half page report from another detective. They finally let me talk to (at the time) D. A. Scot Key after several months of calling constantly. I asked him to do an inquiry into the death of my son. When he called me back he said his office was satisfied that there was no criminal activity involved. Then I asked him did he feel like they (meaning OCDC) handled everything right concerning my son’s death. He said, “If you’re asking me did they take all of the precautions that would concern me. The jail officials should have been watching him closer. My question to them would be didn’t they know my son was destroying property. Did they make a reasonable effort to keep him safe? You have civil issues. You can ask for a civil inquiry. We can find negligence in what they did or didn’t do. He also said he found out my son had depression issues, drug use, and that things were going down hill fast. So we know he was having drug withdrawals which he was not being treated for because the autopsy report said so.
I also tried to contact the new D. A. Diana Martwich for several months again through the Victims Advocate to see if she could help me but I had no results.
I have also contacted numerous other officials trying to find the right people to talk to. Like the US Attorneys Office.
Did they do an Administrative Review after his suicide to try to prevent this from happening again?
Do the New Mexico taxpayers know that Otero County Detention Center is wasting their money by allowing inmates to destroy state issued property?
I don’t feel like I did enough to help my child in life concerning his drug use, but maybe I can help another parent from having to go through what we are going through.
When he started doing drugs, you don’t know how many times I wanted to turn my son in for his drug use. It changed his entire life and ours: my husband, my daughter, my son, and my boy’s own sons.
Can you imagine how many parents would turn their children in for during drugs if they knew that the system would not lock them up but allow them to get treatment for their drug addiction?
In closing, I would like to thank you all for allowing my letter to be read and allowing my story to be told.
May God bless you all to make the right decisions for everyone involved!
Peggy