Report: Staff Believed Inmate Who Died Had Headache Or Virus

An internal investigation has found that jailers and nurses at the St. Louis County Justice Center believed that a man suspected of shooting and wounding an officer had a bad headache or a virus before he became the fifth inmate at the lockup to die in custody last year.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that jail staffers seemed to understand by 4:30 a.m. on Dec. 25 that Jo’von Mitchell was very sick.

But the report said it took more than eight hours to transport him to the infirmary, where a nurse found him unresponsive in a cell around 5 p.m. He died two days later.