Joel Burgess|Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE - Buncombe County Jail failures that preceded a young mother's death by hanging included declining to put her on suicide watch, the lack of a "cutdown" tool and the botched administration of CPR.
That'saccording to a jailer who said she resigned because of the incident, and others who watched video of the alleged debacle. They eachcame forward recently to talk about the death of25-year-old Hannah Guffey of Brevard who was awaiting trial on charges of a DWI and hit-and-run that killed a bicyclist.
Those offering the new information were Guffey's half-brother, Zach Shehan,and stepfather, Tony McClure, both trained inemergency medical response,as well asex-jailer Cara Cambpell, who said she told superiors Guffey might hurtherself andshould be on special watch, though she said thewarnings were ignored.
The Citizen Times spoke with the threethis month following its Jan. 10 publication of an investigation showing Buncombe's jail was the deadliest in the state with a death rate of 2.9 detainees per 1,000—nearly double the national average.
State's deadliest jail: Buncombe has worst death rate, Citizen Times investigation shows
More: Behind the Citizen Times investigation to determine Buncombe has state's deadliest jail
The response included callousness of jail staff toward detainees, saidCampbell, who worked for seven months in the jail. Guffey's death was preventable, she said.
"I think of Hannah every day. She is the reason I quit, and she is actually whatinspired me to help people," she said.
19 deaths, seven hangings
Aaron Sarver, spokesperson for Sheriff Quentin Miller, declined Feb. 14 to answer specific questions about the event and about staff training. He said an internal review, which is not public record, showed no policy violations by jail staff. The State Bureau of Investigation declined to do a full investigation, noting it took 12 hours to be notified of Guffey's death. District Attorney Todd Williams was critical of the delay and has pushed Miller to routinely contact the SBI after a jail death.
Over the last 14 years, Buncombe had a total of 19jail deaths. Seven were suicides, all hangings.
Another jail death: Buncombe County Detention Center detainee dies hours after booking
In 2021,five detention officers and a sergeant received life-saving awardsfor efforts to stop suicide attempts, Sarver said.
Arrested after the July 18 accident that led to the death ofJane NortonBeach, 56, of Columbia, South Carolina, Guffey tested positive for methamphetamines. McClure and his late wife, Guffey's mother, Jewell McClure, called the jail to pleadshe be put on special watch, hesaid.That would mean more frequent guard check-ins and removalof blankets and other potentially dangerous objects.
More: Mother of woman who died in Buncombe County jail custody demands answers from sheriff
"I called them that night and said, 'She’s on drugs. She’s tried to commit suicide before. She should be on suicide watch,'" McClure said Feb. 9. "The next morning, my wife called and said she doesn’t know what happened because she was on drugs."
Campbell, who had been on the job for a month, said she had gotten to know the detainees and about Guffey's daughter, now 4. Campbell grew concernedabout Guffey after seeing her with a blank stare.
"She looked 'gone,' and I was so scared for her, and Isaid, 'Are you OK?" And she said, 'Yeah, I’ll be fine.'"
Campbell, who called in to check on Guffey even on her days off, said she asked for Guffey to be put on special watch, but her concerns were ignored.Sarver, the sheriff's spokesperson,said Guffey had been on special watch for a period of time but was taken off.
As she was ending hershift on the early morning of July 28, Campbell said shetold another guard, Eve Rumph, that she should keep an eye on Guffey.
First responder relatives: botched resuscitation efforts
Later that day, according to jail and body camera videosviewed by the McClures and Shehan, sheleft her cell to talk to someone, whom they saidmight have been a lawyer, at around 10 a.m.
The videos are not public record, according to North Carolina law, which allows only relatives of the deceased to view footage. A court order is required for relatives to get copies of the footage or to release it to others.
After the meeting, Guffey looked"really deflated with her shoulders down," Shehan said. That might have been the point where she learned the seriousness of her charges after Beach's death, he and McClure said.
Guffey stopped and talked to an officer for several minutes before attemptingto make a phone call. McClure said his and his wife's cell phones were not yet equipped to take calls from the jail.
She returned to her cell at 10:40 a.m.
An officer at one point walked by but did not look in, Shehan and McCluresaid. At 11:17 a.m.a guard looked inside the cell. Guffey was hanging from a bedsheet that was tied to a vent over the toilet, amedical examiner's report said.
Sarver declined to comment on details of how the vent could be accessed, such as its height over the toilet.
Rumph did not have her cutdown tool and had to call for help, according to Campbell, who said she was told so after the fact by a superior officer.A guard is required to have the tool, a radio and keys at all times, Campbell said.
State standards require detainees be checked at least every 40 minutes, and those on special watch checked at least every 20 minutes, according toDetention Center Administrator Capt. Jeff Littrell.
After the cut down , Guffey's family said the video showed a guard trying to give her chest compressions. But they were shallow and ineffective, said McClure, who taught lifeguard training courses, including CPR. An automated external defibrillator had been attached to Guffey and was giving audio instructions, McClure said.
"It said, 'harder, harder," but she wasn't doing it," he said of the guard.
A bag valve, a device to transmit air to the lungs, was sitting next tothem but not being used, said Shehan, 37,a former emergency medical technician who worked as an ambulance service assistant chief in Rutherford County. Another jailer then began giving proper compressions, he and McClure said. But then the compressions stopped for what Shehan said was an"extended period of time." McClure estimated it was a minute and a half.
"When you stop, you lose all the pressure you built up that it takes to move blood," Shehan said. "That is why any EMT supervisor says get on compressions and don'tstop."
By that time, others, possibly the private medical staffers, were also present, but they did not step in, Shehan said.
"I don't want to use bad language, but it was a crap show," he said.
Training, similar incident
It was not clear which jail staff members first responded to Guffey. Rumph worked for the jail for nine months, quitting on Nov. 12, 2020, according to personnel records. She could not be reached for comment. A phone number listed for her was disconnected.
Campbell said jail staff are supposed to know CPR, which is part of their training for the first four to six weeks along with basic first aid.
The account of the emergency response was strikingly similar to one threedaysearlier at the jail when detainee JacobBiddix, 26, collapsed and later died at Mission Hospital. Biddix's family members said video footage showed a seven-minute gap between when a guard first saw something amiss to when chest compressions were started.
When an automated external defibrillator told the responding staff memberto administer shocks, the stafferdid not, said Biddix's sister, Devon Biddix, a certified nursing assistant who is studying to be a nurse and who said the failed response"blew her mind."
The McClures went to see Guffey at Mission, where Tony McClure described her as basically being "kept alive by a machine." They were called in the parking lot of the hospital as they were leaving and told she had died. Shehan was living in California but quickly flew to North Carolina after being called about the incident.
Responding to questions from the Citizen Times, Sarver said Campbell was not part of the response team. He said the medical examiner's report, a death certificate and an autopsy "contradict both the current and past allegations made by Mr. McClure."
But those documents offer a confusing picture. The death certificate says Guffey's "time of injury" was 11 a.m. and she died "minutes later" of asphyxiation. Though in another part of the document it says her death was at 9:45 p.m., more than 10 hours later.
A medical examiner's report says CPR was started in the jail and continued on the trip to the Emergency Department, "where circulation was restored." Brain damage was detected, and she was transferred to the neurotrauma ICU where she died, the report said.
The autopsy report from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center says Guffey "had no previous history of suicide attempts or suicidal ideation," counter to McClure's statements that Guffey had tried before to harm herself.
While CPR is often not successful, Campbell and Guffey's family said actions still should have been taken before and after her hanging that could have prevented her death, including being more attentive to her state of mind.
Campbell, 26, said she comesfrom a family of law enforcement officers and saw the jail job as a way to serve the public and earn more money for her and her three children.Butthe neglect, such as what happened with Guffey, and joking about detainees' suffering led to her quit, she said.Campbellsaid she will now study to become a behavioral health technician and go into some form of psychiatricwork.
Shehan said the proper CPR and use of a defibrillator can at least give a fighting chance and that jail staff should be proficient in them. Training should address that, he said.
"I just want it to not happen to anyone else again — policies and procedures should bein place so that it doesn’t happen to another family."
Joel Burgess has lived in WNC for more than 20 years, covering politics, government and other news. He's written award-winning stories on topics ranging from gerrymandering to police use of force. Got a tip? Contact Burgess atjburgess@citizentimes.com, 828-713-1095 or on Twitter@AVLreporter. Please help support this type of journalism with asubscriptionto the Citizen Times.
