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September 10, 2006 - Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)

Inmate 'Suicide' Doubted By His Family

By Janese Heavin, Tribune's Staff

Return to Drug War News: Don't Miss Archive

In a letter to his ex-wife, Jason McCoy promised to spend more time with his sons once he got out of Boonville Correctional Center.

McCoy won't keep that promise. On Aug. 13 -- a day before that letter arrived at Rena McCoy's home and 21 days before his scheduled release -- McCoy, 31, was found dead inside a prison utility closet.

Early reports indicate McCoy killed himself. Friends and family members don't buy it. Now, Rena McCoy and McCoy's cousin, Tammy Wright, are separately seeking attorneys to deem whether legal action against the Boonville center and Missouri's correctional system is warranted.

McCoy was seven months into a five-year sentence from Buchanan County for felony possession of marijuana in December 2005. He was expected to be paroled Sept. 4. Relatives say he looked forward to returning home to St. Joseph, where he planned to live with a friend and get his life back on track.

"I can't picture him ever doing that to himself," Rena McCoy said of the suicide scenario.

Jason McCoy "did stupid stuff and put himself in prison," said Mandy Wright, a family relation by marriage. "But they're supposed to protect him" in prison. "He was their property. He should have never been able to harm himself, which I don't think he did."

McCoy had pending drug charges in Nebraska, but neither family members nor Missouri corrections officials expected the charges to interfere with his parole. Rena McCoy has acquired written correspondence between her ex-husband and Nebraska dated in May, in which Jason McCoy requested time after his parole to get an attorney and deal with the charges.

McCoy's body was found on Aug. 13, although it's unclear at what time. Rena McCoy said his death certificate lists the time of his injuries as 3 p.m. and time of death as 5:12 p.m.

The Boonville Fire Department received a medical emergency call from the center at 4:53 p.m., but the call was canceled before emergency crews reached the prison.

Cooper County Coroner Larry Jones confirmed McCoy was found barricaded inside a utility closet, a garden hose around his neck, lacerations on both arms and a vertical cut down the center of his neck, apparently made by a disposable razor.

Jones declined to speculate about the sequence of the wounds. Family members said they were told McCoy died from blood loss. They were also told the razor vanished down an open drain in the closet.

Tammy Wright, a cousin who grew up in the same home as McCoy, said she can't imagine how he could have inflicted all of those wounds.

"One arm I could understand," she said. "To do them both and do it with a disposable razor blade, it's not consistent."

Boone County Medical Examiner Eddie Adelstein conducted the autopsy, but his office declined to release initial findings, saying officials are awaiting toxicology results.

The state inspector general's office is investigating McCoy's death, which they do any time a prison death includes an autopsy report, said Brian Hauswirth, a Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman.

State investigators are looking into all circumstances surrounding the incident, including any possible negligence.

Inmates might have access to some prison maintenance closets, depending on the security level at the facility and which housing unit a prisoner is assigned to in that center, Hauswirth said. If prisoners are assigned cleaning duties, he said, they might be free to get supplies such as brooms from closets.

Hauswirth declined to say where a garden hose might be stored at a prison, calling that detail too relevant to the investigation.

Rena McCoy said she received a copy of another letter from prison officials after McCoy died. The letter, reportedly found in McCoy's locker, was not dated and did not have his name on it. All other letters she received from her ex-husband during his incarceration were signed, she said.

It's unsettling, she said of the unsigned letter prison officials sent her more than a week after his death. The handwriting seems different, she said.

In the letter, the writer apologizes for past mistakes and concludes: "Love always, your new angel."

Rena McCoy is convinced her ex-husband would have asked her to tell their sons he loved them, if he had written the letter.

"Maybe I'm reaching, but I think he would have said something to his kids, especially if he was going to make them hurt like this."

By comparison, she said, the letter that arrived in her mailbox Aug. 14 talked about the future. "He said to tell the boys he wasn't ever going to miss a ballgame or a play again."

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