MBI continues to probe 4 inmate deaths since May
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Three inmates in the custody of the Jones County Adult Detention Center and a Jones County inmate who was in state custody have died since May.
All of the deaths in the local jail are believed to be health-related, but Mississippi Bureau of Investigation officials have yet to report their findings in any of the cases. Messages to public information officer Capt. Johnny Poulos have not been answered.
“MBI is very thorough with their investigations,” Chief Deputy Mitch Sumrall of the Jones County Sheriff’s Department said. “We turned over everything that we have to them and we opened the jail to let them speak to inmates. We gave them access to anything they want.”
Everything that goes on inside the jail is on video surveillance, he said.
“A company that’s outside the state handles the video, so there’s no chance of anyone here deleting anything,” Sumrall added.
MBI was called in to investigate the deaths so an independent agency can determine the cause, he said.
All three of the inmates had “health issues” and two were seeing specialists, Sumrall said, but he isn’t allowed to get into specifics. He did say that none of the deaths were COVID-19-related.
• Stacie McLemore, 32, died in May after being booked for burglary of a dwelling;
• Andrew Jones, 34, died in January after being booked into the jail for burglary;
• Tonya Evonne Taylor-McCullum, 55, died this month after being arrested on two drug charges in August. She was out on bond at the time of her second felony arrest, so bond was denied.
McLemore and Jones were being housed alone in cells and Taylor-McCullum was in a holding area with other inmates.
“It’s unfortunate that they passed, and our hearts and prayers go out to their families,” Sumrall said, “but our nurse and jail staff did a good job and responded well. No foul play is suspected. I saw all three videos.”
Jones is the only one who died at the jail, according to reports. McLemore was pronounced dead in an ambulance on the way to the hospital and Taylor-McCullum was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Inmates in the Jones County jail are well taken care of, Sumrall said.
“We’ve loaded buses of inmates and taken them to Collins for (COVID-19) testing,” he said. “We’re constantly taking them for medical care … Some of them are playing with the taxpayers’ money just because they want to go for a ride, but we can’t deny them medical care.”
Timothy Walters, 61, of Jones County died in Mississippi Department of Corrections custody at Merit Wesley in Hattiesburg this month. He was being housed in the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville before being taken to the hospital. His death is also believed to be the result of natural causes, but again, officials haven’t released a cause of death.
Walters was serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in 1993 to capital rape and sexual assault in Jones County. He admitted to raping a 9-year-old girl in his family and was sentenced to life plus 30 years by then-Judge Billy Joe Landrum in Jones County Circuit Court.
“I got hooked on cocaine and drugs for most of my life and this is where it has ended,” he said at the time, according to the court transcript. “I ain’t got no excuse, but I am sorry.”
He would have turned 62 on Sunday.
At least 11 state inmates have died this year, and at least 106 died between late 2019 until the end of 2020. Several died during outbursts of violence in December 2019 and early January 2020. The U.S. Justice Department announced last February 2020 that it is investigating the state’s prison system.
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