The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility. [Andrew Pantazi]

A 64-year-old Jacksonville man died early Tuesday in the Duval County jail while in isolation. He had been arrested on a charge of trespassing on private property and defying an order to leave. 

Renae Ray Carter was last seen outside of his cell at 9:30 p.m. Monday, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

When correctional officers did their rounds to check on inmates just after midnight, Carter was spotted lying under his bunk. The officer knocked on the glass door, and Carter didn’t respond, according to the in-custody death report. Officers called medical staff, and Carter was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. by the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.

There are no indications that Carter had any prior interactions with other inmates or officers that could have contributed to the medical emergency, JSO said in a news release.

The Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an autopsy, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office cold case unit will investigate as is standard when an inmate dies in the Sheriff’s Office’s custody. 

Carter was arrested on Nov. 22 after he went inside of a medical clinic and yelled at customers, police said. According to the arrest report, Carter had been in the business at least twice before in November and was asked to leave both times.

Carter is the 15th person to die in custody at the Duval County jail this year. He is the fourth reported under the jail’s new medical care provider, NaphCare. 

This is the fourth year in a row the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has seen double-digit deaths at the jail under a private medical provider.

The Tributary previously found that deaths in the Duval County jail tripled since Armor Correctional Health Services started handling health care — from about four deaths per year from 2012 to 2017 when health care was handled in-house to about 13 deaths per year since 2018.

After The Tributary published its findings, JSO severed its $98-million contract with Armor, replacing it with a $110-million contract with NaphCare for the next five years.

Nichole Manna is The Florida Trib's Senior Investigative Reporter. She has been with the organization since 2023 and has covered the criminal justice system for more than a decade.

Nichole has extensively covered conditions at the Duval County jail and in 2024 received first place from the Green Eyeshade Awards in online investigations for her reporting of medical neglect at the facility. That series of stories was recognized with awards at the local, regional and national level. She took home the first place prize for a feature story in a small newsroom from the Online Journalism Awards in 2025 for her series, ‘Cold-Blooded’, which dissected a 1993 death penalty case and questioned whether the defendant received a fair trial.

Prior to joining The Trib, Nichole was an investigative reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas where she was a Livingston Award finalist for a series of stories about a neighborhood with the lowest life expectancy in the state. Her work helped get residents access to free pop-up clinics and they continue to receive help with food disparities.

She is currently working with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network to produce an investigative project.

You can reach her at nichole@floridatrib.org.