We’re testing using AI-powered tools to provide an audio version of this story. While this audio recording is machine-generated, the story was written by human journalists.NORMAN, Oklahoma — Two days after Thanksgiving in 2022, Shannon Hanchett walked into an AT&T store for a new phone, and ended up in handcuffs.
First: Daniel Hanchett clasps his hands while talking about his family. Last: Daniel, the husband of Shannon Hanchett, who ran the Cookie Cottage, a popular bakery in Norman, Oklahoma.At least 50 people who were under Turn Key’s care died during the past decade, an investigation by The Marshall Project and The Frontier found. Our reporting unearthed company policies and practices that have endangered people in jail — especially those with mental illness.
To examine the company’s practices, we obtained records, including internal documents and emails between company leaders and public officials, in nearly 70 counties across Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Colorado, Kansas and Montana. We also reviewed more than 100 lawsuits involving jail deaths and injuries.
By then she had been lying on the floor of an empty cell for days, mostly naked, dehydrated and in deep psychosis,. The licensed practical nurse at the jail consulted with an off-site Turn Key nurse practitioner, who said to give Hanchett some Gatorade, according to jail records. Her pulse was weakening, her blood pressure dropping — she couldn’t stand up or dress herself.
At the county jail, a licensed practical nurse working for Turn Key did not recognize that Kessee was overdosing on methamphetamine and prescription drugs, instead accusing him of faking symptoms that included seizures, according to a lawsuit filed by his family. The nurse and jailers left Kessee alone in a cell.In response to the lawsuit, the nurse said he hadn’t been trained on overdoses and wasn’t qualified to determine if someone was experiencing one.
The company finished the first three months of the contract under budget and sent just one person to the hospital by ambulance, Echols told county officials in 2009, according toEchols won a seat in the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 2012. A Republican, he now serves as House majority floor leader. In March, we asked Turn Key corporate leaders for an interview, including Echols, whoas the company’s president and founder.
Within a few days of her arrest, Sullivan tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists, records show. She went on to attempt suicide numerous times, trying to drown herself in a toilet and to strangle herself with an adult diaper. Sullivan was often in deep psychosis, records show. She developed pressure sores from lying naked on the floor. Medical exams noted she was “at extremely high risk for complications including sudden death.”
After a suicide inside the Oklahoma County Detention Center in December 2021, the same psychiatrist who’d treated Sullivan, Dr. Gabriel Cuka, emailed an entreaty to local public defenders, giving them a list of 18 “inmates who need inpatient psychiatric stabilization that exceeds the capacity” of the jail, records show.“I am not saying that these inmates are incompetent in the Oklahoma legal sense of the term. These inmates are very ill and in some cases dying.
When Eusebio Castillo Rodriguez was locked up in the Union County, Arkansas, jail on a DWI charge in June 2022, his documented symptoms of alcohol withdrawal — a common problem in jails — went untreated for more than five days,filed by his family. Most treatment protocols include a prescription for a medication to prevent deadly seizures or alcohol withdrawal delirium. Instead, a Turn Key doctor consulting over the phone prescribed a blood pressure drug, records show.
The company cultivated close relationships with law enforcement. At conferences in Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and Colorado, Turn Key raffled off hunting gear includingto sheriffs and deputies, according to social media posts. It treated clients to steak dinners and delivered packages of smoked bacon for Christmas, according to emails we obtained.
But several jails have ended their contracts with Turn Key over its level of care. Garfield County, Colorado, did so in June 2023 after Sheriff Lou Vallario said he determined the company wasn’t providing enough nurses and mental health staffing.
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