SBI investigates inmate suicide at county jail

Published 2:14 pm Tuesday, September 29, 2020

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Editor’s Note: The Stanly News & Press has chosen to withhold the name of this person. The SNAP does not typically report on suicides.  

An inmate at the Stanly County Detention Center died by suicide by jumping from the second floor of his jail pod, according to a preliminary investigation conducted by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation.

The 75-year-old man was pronounced dead at the jail on Sunday, said Anjanette Grube, public information director for the SBI’s Southern Piedmont District in Harrisburg.

He was booked into the Stanly County Detention Center on Sept. 24 by the Stanly County Sheriff’s Office as part of a joint SBI investigation involving the Sheriff’s Office on narcotics charges.

He was arrested Sept. 24 for outstanding drug charges that stemmed back to the fall of 2018, said Sheriff Jeff Crisco.

“He had been evading law enforcement ever since,” he said, noting several arrests warrants had been issued for him.

Crisco has no idea what caused the inmate to leap to his death and said, as far as he knows, it’s the first suicide of an inmate to occur in the county. The incident is under investigation by the SBI.

About Chris Miller

Chris Miller has been with the SNAP since January 2019. He is a graduate of NC State and received his Master's in Journalism from the University of Maryland. He previously wrote for the Capital News Service in Annapolis, where many of his stories on immigration and culture were published in national papers via the AP wire.

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