Why are so many inmates dying in the Gwinnett County Jail?
Sherry Strayhon with her son Deion. Awaiting trial for aggravated assault, he died inside the Gwinnett County Detention Center from a ruptured ulcer. (Family photo)
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Multiple investigations are underway into a series of deaths at the Gwinnett County Jail.
Eight people have died since a new administration took over in January 2021. That’s more than any other metro jail of similar size.
The deaths include at least one suicide, two drug overdoses, and one prisoner who suffered a ruptured ulcer.
His name was Deion Strayhon, 26.
"It’s been hard," Strayhon's mother Sherry said. "I feel like I don’t know much more than I did the day that he died."
Strayhon was arrested in November 2020 on aggravated assault and weapons charges. He had yet to go to trial.
During his months behind bars, his mother says Strayhon would constantly call to complain jail staff ignored his deteriorating health.
On April 16, 2021, deputies knocked on her door to announce her only son was dead.
"He was not just a number," she insisted. "He was a human. And he deserved medical care."
Part of a letter sent to Deion's mother from inmates who said deputies and medical staff did not take his medical struggles seriously.
After his death, Sherry received a letter written by a former cellmate and signed by 18 other inmates claiming Strayhon was once "laughed at by a deputy" when he tried to get help. The letter said Strayhon worried "they weren’t trying to find the source of the problem to his pain but just kept attempting to give him random medications."
"The night before he died he called me, and we were excited because he said that they said that there was going to be a doctor there the next morning that will see him," she remembered. "So I was up early waiting for a call from him and that’s when they came and rang my doorbell. And he died at 5:58 a.m. that morning."
Strayhon would be the second of seven inmates to die last year in the Gwinnett County Detention Center. The larger DeKalb County jail saw two deaths in the same period. The much busier jail in Fulton County had four inmate deaths.
An eighth Gwinnett prisoner died in January 2022.
The GBI and Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office continue to investigate some of those deaths, including Strayhon’s. None of the eight died from COVID-19. In fact, in 2020, Gwinnett had only two jail deaths.
What changed in 2021? For one thing, a new sheriff took over.
Gwinnett County Sheriff Keybo Taylor (L) and Chief Deputy Cleo Atwater said they want to wait until all investigations are complete before deciding whether there's a clear reason for the spike in prisoner deaths.
"It’s unfortunate we have even one death," said Sheriff Keybo Taylor. "Even one is one too many. But to say we have a problem, no."
Taylor became sheriff with a vow to change the culture inside the jail. Before he took over, the county paid millions of dollars to settle civil rights lawsuits filed by inmates subdued by the jail’s Rapid Response Team.
Taylor disbanded the controversial unit on his first day in office and encouraged deputies to get more involved in settling inmate disputes.
Instead, dozens have resigned, including Nina Anderson.
"I’m thankful for that because I got out in one piece," she said.
Nina Anderson with her 2019 Deputy of the Year Award. The veteran Gwinnett County deputy blames at least some recent jail deaths on low staffing.
Anderson spent 22 years with the sheriff’s office. In 2019, she took home the Deputy of the Year Award.
Last year she retired in lieu of termination after suggesting a superior was having an affair and then denying she said it when confronted.
But Anderson insists she was planning to quit anyway.
"I just walked out the door one day … crying," she said. "Heavy-hearted and with a lot of regrets."
At that point, only one inmate had died. Seven more would follow.
Anderson believes at least part of the problem is low staffing numbers. In December, deputies were told by a memo that mandatory overtime was in effect until March.
Anderson said she has stayed in touch with deputies still working at the jail.
"They’re frustrated by the mandatory overtime and staffing shortages," she explained. "Making them a little more scared. A little more wary."
Taylor said they have seen an increase in staff injuries, but excessive force incidents committed by staff — incidents that cost the county millions of dollars — are way down.
The Sheriff’s Office has also struggled to fill 114 open positions since taking over last year or about 13 percent of its workforce.
But other jails can’t find enough staff either.
"We have not found any issues as far as the staffing issues that we can say had anything to do with this," Taylor said. But he was hard-pressed to explain the jump in jail deaths since he took over and wouldn’t talk specifics about any open investigations.
Taylor also wouldn’t second guess his decision to transfer some staff to positions outside the jail such as his new anti-gang unit.
"To put those resources strictly in the jail means we’re not going to look at any other factors that’s going on in Gwinnett County," he said. "And the only thing we’re going to do is sit and wait for someone else to make an arrest and bring that person to jail."
Sherry Strayhon is consulting with the Cochran Firm, but so far no one has sued over any of the eight jail deaths.
Strayhon says she’s waiting to read the GBI report before deciding if what happened to her son was an unavoidable tragedy or something someone inside the jail should have prevented.