sleep on a chilly night last month when he curled
up in an enclosed stairwell on the roof of a Harlem
public housing project where he was arrested for
trespassing.
A week later, the mentally ill homeless man was
found dead in a Rikers Island jail cell that four city
officials say had overheated to at least 100
degrees, apparently because of malfunctioning
equipment.
The officials told The Associated Press that the 56-
year-old former Marine was on anti-psychotic and
anti-seizure medication, which may have made
him more vulnerable to heat. He also apparently
did not open a small vent in his cell, as other
inmates did, to let in cool air.
"He basically baked to death," said one of the
officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity
because they were not permitted to discuss
specifics of the case.
The medical examiner's office said an autopsy was
inconclusive and that more tests were needed to
determine Murdough's exact cause of death. But
the officials, all with detailed knowledge of the
case, say initial indications from the autopsy and
investigation point to extreme dehydration or heat
stroke.
Advocates for mentally ill inmates in New York say
the death represents the failure of the city's justice
system on almost every level: by arresting
Murdough instead of finding him help, by setting
bail at a prohibitive $2,500 and by not supervising
him closely in what is supposed to be a special
observation unit for inmates with mental illnesses.
Department of Correction spokesman Robin
Campbell said in a statement that an internal
investigation will look into all circumstances of
Murdough's death, "including issues of staff
performance and the adequacy of procedures."
Campbell acknowledged that the temperature in
Murdough's cell was "unusually high" and that
action has been taken to fix mechanical problems
to ensure safe temperatures, "particularly in areas
housing vulnerable inmates."
Murdough's 75-year-old mother, Alma Murdough,
said she did not learn of her son's death until the
AP contacted her last week, nearly a month after
he died. His public defender was told of the death
three days after the inmate was found, the DOC
said.
"He was a very lovely, caring guy," said Murdough,
adding that her son had bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia and that she had not seen him in
about three years.
"He had beer problems. Drinking beer. That was
his downfall. Other than that, he was a very nice
guy. He'd give you the shirt off his back."
Family members say Murdough grew up in Queens
and joined the Marine Corps right out of high
school, doing at least one stint in Okinawa, Japan.
When he returned from the service, his family said,
both his mental illness and thirst for alcohol
became more pronounced, and he would often
disappear for months at a time, finding warmth in
hospitals, shelters and the streets.
"When he wanted to venture off, we let him, we
allowed him to come and go," recalled his sister,
Cheryl Warner. "He always came back."
Murdough's criminal record included 11
misdemeanor convictions for trespassing, drinking
in public and minor drug charges, said Ivan Vogel,
a public defender who represented him at his
arraignment on the trespassing charge.
According to the city officials, Murdough was
locked alone into his 6-by-10 cinderblock cell at
about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 14, a week after his
arrest. Because he was in the mental-observation
unit, he was supposed to be checked every 15
minutes as part of suicide watch, they said. But
Murdough was not discovered until four hours
later, at about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 15. He was
slumped over in his bed and already dead.
When Murdough was found and his cell opened, his
internal body temperature and the temperature in
the cell were at least 100 degrees. Those
temperatures could have been higher before he
was discovered because the cell had been closed
for several hours, the officials said.
Dr. Susi Vassallo, an associate professor at New
York University School of Medicine and a national
expert on heat-related deaths who monitors heat
conditions at Rikers Island, said psychotropic
medications can impair the body's ability to cool
itself by sweating, making it retain more heat than
it should.
Exposure to intense heat for a couple of hours by
someone on such medications could be fatal, she
said.
Last year, only three Rikers inmates died from non-
natural causes, according to Department of
Correction statistics.
Of the 12,000 inmates who make up the nation's
second-largest jail system, about 40 percent are
mentally ill, and a third of them suffer from serious
mental problems the department said. Advocates
and others have long argued that correction
officers are not sufficiently trained to deal with
mentally ill inmates whose needs are complex.
Catherine Abate, a member of the New York City
Board of Correction, an agency charged with
overseeing the city's jails, suggested at a recent
public meeting that Murdough should have been
referred him to psychiatric care, not to Rikers
Island.
Jennifer J. Parish, an attorney at the New York-
based Urban Justice Center's Mental Health Project,
said Murdough appeared to be a man in need of
care.
"So Mr. Murdough violated the trespass law. So he
suffered the consequences by going to jail," Parish
said. "But the jail system committed more serious
harm to him. And the question is, 'Will they ever be
held responsible?'"
Wanda Mehala, another of Murdough's sisters, said
the family wants an explanation.
"We want justice for what was done," she said. "He
wasn't just some old homeless person on the
street. He was loved. He had a life. He had a family.
He had feelings."
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