A fifth Duval County jail inmate has died this year after a “lengthy stay” at a hospital, according to reporting by First Coast News.
Shortly after midnight Tuesday, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said members of its Cold Case Unit were notified of the death of Scott Stormes, 66.
The Cold Case Unit investigates in-custody deaths at the John E. Goode Pre-trial Detention Facility.
Stormes died while receiving medical treatment at the hospital, where he had been since early June, JSO said in a news release to First Coast News. Stormes had been taken to the hospital on “several occasions” since his arrest on a charge of possession of photographs/sexual performance by a child in October 2022.
There were no signs of use of force or any physical incidents involving Stormes, JSO said. His cause of death will be determined by the Medical Examiner’s office.
Stormes is the fifth person to die in jail custody this year, and the seventh death since NaphCare took over the jail’s medical care in September.
In February, Isaiah Lazarus Mitchell, 24, died after he “suffered an unknown medical episode.” Leroy Beckett, 66, also died in February after being taken to the hospital for treatment of multiple ongoing medical issues. Again in February, Kiara Lapearl Reid, 32, died after officers found her “in distress” while doing rounds. In January, 59-year-old Gregory Norton died after being hospitalized for a medical issue.
Autopsies obtained by The Tributary for Mitchell and Reid show they both died of fentanyl overdoses. They are the seventh and eighth people to die with fentanyl in their system in the jail since 2022.
JSO began investigating drugs being brought into the facility in October of last year. It was that month that former-Correctional Officer Kobe Collett was suspended from his job. He was arrested in April and charged with bringing drugs into the facility.
City of Jacksonville Public Works employee Corey Copeland was also arrested and accused of dealing drugs to inmates who were on the work crews he supervised, the sheriff said. He was arrested in January.
The sheriff did not tie the drug operation to any deaths in the jail or give details on the type of drug that was being distributed, but at least six people since 2022 – during a time period when Collett worked at the Sheriff’s Office – died with fentanyl in their system while incarcerated there, according to JSO and medical examiner’s records previously obtained by The Tributary.
Mitchell and Reid died after Collett’s suspension and Copeland’s arrest.
Other deaths
Fifteen people died in custody of the Duval County jail last year. It was the fourth year in a row JSO saw double-digit deaths at the jail under a private medical provider.
The Tributary previously found that deaths in the Duval County jail tripled after 2017 when the Sheriff’s Office privatized medical care at the facility.
After The Tributary published its findings, JSO severed its $98-million contract with Armor Correctional Health Services, replacing it with a $110-million contract with NaphCare for the next five years.
Read The Tributary’s previous coverage of Duval County jail conditions here.
Nichole Manna is The Tributary’s criminal justice reporter. You can reach her at nichole.manna@floridatrib.org or on Twitter at @NicholeManna.
