Woman Whose Son Killed Self in Jail Files Suit Against County
The mother of an Orange County Jail inmate who committed suicide while a prisoner in the Santa Ana facility filed a wrongful death suit Monday against the county and the Sheriff-Coroner Department.
Twana Nadine Marderos of Anaheim charged in her suit that jail health care providers should have known that her son, Johnny Ray Stephenson, 31, had attempted suicide while jailed in the past.
The suit contends that the Sheriff-Coroner Department was negligent when a jail-issued razor was left in Stephenson’s possession. He was found bleeding to death in his cell on Nov. 6, 1984.
The Orange County Health Care Agency is also named in the suit, which asks for unspecified hospital and medical expenses and general and compensatory damages.
Stephenson’s death touched off a conflict between the Sheriff-Coroner Department and the Health Care Agency when health officials refused to turn over the inmate’s psychiatric files to Sheriff Brad Gates for his review as coroner in determining an official cause of death.
Lt. Bob Benson, a sheriff’s spokesman, declined to comment on the suit.
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