Traverse City Record-Eagle

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September 8, 2010

Lawsuit filed in Benzie jail suicide

Edward D. Baughman died in August 2009

BY ALEX PIAZZA apiazza@record-eagle.com

BEULAH — A Benzie County woman contends corrections officers failed to properly monitor her husband while he was behind bars prior to his suicide in a jail cell.

Susan Baughman's lawsuit seeks at least $100,000 in damages from the Benzie County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Rory Heckman and several other deputies and medical personnel for her husband's death.

Edward D. Baughman, 49, of Elberta, died Aug. 28, 2009, after he wove a bed sheet through a vent grate in his Benzie County Jail cell and hanged himself during a staff shift change.

Baughman's wrongful death lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids and states that corrections officers failed to grant Edward Baughman's repeated requests for antidepressants just before his suicide.

He told a jail nurse the day of his suicide that he needed antidepressants and told a different nurse the same thing three days prior, the suit states. Medication apparently arrived to the jail at about the same time Edward Baughman hanged himself.

"Obviously, this is a family tragedy," said Patrick Heintz, Susan Baughman's attorney.

Corrections officers locked Edward Baughman and other inmates in their cells for a jail staff shift change, but Baughman never emerged into a commons area an hour later, when deputies unlocked the cell doors using a remote system. A fellow inmate found Baughman hanging in his cell two hours after the initial lockdown and notified jailers.

Authorities transported him to Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital in Frankfort, where he was pronounced dead.

"Despite the direct knowledge that Edward D. Baughman posed a serious threat to himself, he was put in a cell where he was not regularly observed or monitored for his safety," Heintz wrote in the lawsuit. "He was able to remain unsupervised and out of visual surveillance within his jail cell for over a two-hour period."

The defendants "denied that Edward D. Baughman was a substantial suicide risk," Traverse City attorney Haider Kazim wrote in response to the lawsuit.

Heckman issued written reprimands last year to two corrections officers — Kristi Fortine and Christopher Woods — because he said they didn't properly supervise inmates the day Edward Baughman died.

The suicide also prompted Heckman to change the way in which his corrections officers monitor inmates. Benzie jail staff are required to personally conduct cell inspections instead of relying on surveillance cameras to monitor inmates.

"They can't just rely on the cameras and the technology," Heckman said. "They're getting in each cell and doing observations."

Vent grates in the jail cells also were altered so inmates can't weave bed sheets through the openings.

"This is an 18-year-old facility," he said. "Back then, they were probably OK."

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