Family files lawsuit over inmate's suicide

Family members of a De Soto, Missouri, man who committed suicide in 2013 while being held in the Butler County Justice Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, have filed a federal lawsuit against Butler and Stoddard counties, as well as officers in each county and a local bail bondsman.

Timothy Martin Lee, 48, was found dead about 10 p.m. Feb. 10, 2013, in an isolation area, where he was the lone inmate being housed because medical reasons made him ineligible to be in the jail’s general population.

Lee’s cause of death was “asphyxiation due to hanging” through the use of his T-shirt, according to earlier reports.

Lee’s death was investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Division of Drug and Crime Control and the Butler County, Missouri, coroner’s office. It was ruled as a suicide.

Poplar Bluff attorney Steve Walsh filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau on behalf of Lee’s estate and his widow, Kandie Funkhouser; his mother, Freida Lee; and his son, Nathan Lee, against Butler and Stoddard counties.

Also named as plaintiffs are former Butler County corrections officers Patrick Kerperien, Marcus Kirby and Wesley Owens; Stoddard County Sheriff Carl Hefner; Stoddard County chief deputy Tommy Horton; Stoddard County deputy Larry Vandeven; and bail bondsman Craig Meador.

The suit states Lee’s right to be protected from known risks of suicide, provided adequate medical care and protection from deliberate indifference to substantial medical needs and due process were violated under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Missouri’s wrongful-death statute.

According to the suit, Lee was arrested Feb. 3, 2013, in Stoddard County. About 6:15 a.m. that day, Lee’s sister called police in Dexter, Missouri, saying her brother was intoxicated and threatening to kill himself and others at his estranged wife’s home in Dexter. Lee was arrested on suspicion of being a felon in possession of a firearm and on a Ballard County, Kentucky, warrant.

The complaint alleges none of the officers interviewed, screened or assessed Lee at the jail to determine his mental status or his medical history, and they “knew, at that time, Timothy Lee was homicidal and suicidal.” The officers and Stoddard County knew Lee “had a long history of excessive drinking, driving while intoxicated, of mental instability and of suicidal (ideas),” the suit alleges.

The complaint alleges the officers did not get Lee medical or mental treatment, nor did they place him on suicide watch or enter a monitoring order.

While en route to the jail with Lee, officers learned he was out on bond for a DWI through his bonding agent, Meador of Phil Childress Bail Bonds. Meador asked the officers to transfer Lee to the Stoddard/Butler County line, the complaint alleges. Meador took custody of Lee and lodged him in the Butler County Jail.

The complaint alleges none of the officers gave Meador documentation about Lee’s arrest, nor did they tell him Lee was homicidal/suicidal and in need of medical and mental-health treatment.

The complaint alleges neither Kirby or Kerperien, who was his supervisor, made an “adequate assessment/screening” of Lee’s physical and mental health nor asked any questions about mental-health medications or the circumstances surrounding his arrest.

No medical consultation reportedly was sought, and Lee allegedly wasn’t given medical or psychiatric treatment or put on a suicide watch.

Owens, Kirby and Kerperien, according to the complaint, knew Lee needed medical care as they “placed him alone in a cell next to the correction officers’ station, but failed to place him on any kind of special watch.”

The complaint alleges the corrections officers violated jail policies by putting and maintaining Lee in protective custody since it is “limited to those inmates who are in fear of their own well being.”

Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs said earlier Lee was placed in “an area of isolation of the jail ... (where) we typically keep those in not good enough physical condition to be in the general population.”

At the time of Lee’s death, Dobbs said, he was the only inmate who “met that criteria.”