I-TEAM | ‘They just let him die’: Did a corrections officer leave a man dying to take a nap?

TRENTON, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - The United States Department of Justice has opened two investigations into South Carolina jails, but an I-TEAM investigation shows that might not be enough.

South Carolina has 46 counties.

Each one has a jail, but the feds are only looking at two of them: the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in Charleston, S.C. and the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Columbia, S.C.

Both are located in two of the state’s larger communities where there’s already a spotlight on problems. But what about smaller jails where there isn’t as much scrutiny?

The I-TEAM first told you about how starving to death.

Again, that happened at a county jail.

South Carolina also has 21 state prisons, where, it appears, deaths are happening in the shadows, too.

ALAN THIBODEAU’S INVESTIGATION:

• Dying for help | A special report on the Alan Thibodeau case
• Dying for help | Mental illness behind bars
• Dying for help | How a man’s mental illness in a local jail was his death sentence
• Bamberg County sued after mental health patient wastes
• Family speaks for first time on Bamberg County negligence lawsuit

Safer behind bars?

Jeremy Kelley was a prisoner long before he ever served any time.

As an addict, he spent years handcuffed to drugs.

Eventually, his addiction led to actual handcuffs, but, at the very least, his family thought he could finally be free when he was behind bars.

“He can’t take drugs,” said Jeremy’s sister, Rhonda Rice. “I always felt that was the safest place for him to be.”

Instead, it would become his death sentence.

Jeremy could always make his family laugh.

“Funny, funny, funny,” his mother, Beverly Pilz, ed. “They could laugh and giggle like they were three years old again.”

His family shared videos of him dancing and cracking jokes, lighting up every room. The father of two would get clean – and stay clean – for a while. However, it only took one slip to find him arrested.

Again. It’s a vicious cycle familiar to anyone who loves an addict.

“You are not getting the whole story.”

The 911 call came on July 20, 2021 from inside Trenton Correctional, a sign at the entrance boasts its self-proclaimed “ethical facility” with “SCDC’s finest employees.”

Dispatchers sent an ambulance to the prison for an “unresponsive patient.” She was told the AED was hooked up, and chest compressions were being done. It was too late.

The I-TEAM first started asking questions back in 2021.

Not long after Jeremy died – his mom started getting phone calls.

“From inmates,” said Pilz back in 2021. “You are not getting the whole story.”

Now, three years later, the I-TEAM can finally show you the red flags and how a series of failures may have cost Jeremy his life.

It also costs you, the taxpayer, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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The timeline

We begin our timeline at 4:09 a.m. on July 20, 2021.

There’s a slight glitch in the dormitory surveillance video, but you can see Jeremy fall out of bed.

The cameras do not record any sound, so we don’t know what he says when he sits up and talks to another inmate, but one minute later, at 4:10 a.m., he slumps over.

An inmate goes to get help.

Jeremy’s mother and sister are watching the video with the I-TEAM.

Pilz has seen it many times before, but her eyes filled with tears as Jeremy’s last moments begin to unfold.

“It’s so crazy. As many times as I’ve watched, every time I’m rooting for him, like, ‘Come on, boy. Do it! Get up! Get up! Get up!” she said.

Jeremy does not get up.

An inmate goes to get help.

Sleeping on the job?

Corrections Officer Shermere Hardin emerges from an office to check on Jeremy.

According to the video, she only spends one minute checking on him, standing over him as he lies on the floor.

She briefly talks with another inmate and then heads back to the office.

Her room goes dark at 4:47 a.m.

We can’t say for sure what Officer Hardin was doing in there, but she’s known for sleeping on the job.

She was caught sleeping twice, and documents show she was suspended for it both times.

First, she itted to “falling asleep while working in medical,” but most recently, she had been caught again one month before Jeremy died.

The dorm lights come back on at 5:05 a.m.

Officer Hardin’s lights are still out.

Inmates notice Jeremy isn’t moving, so at 5:08 a.m., one of them tries to get her attention by knocking on the office door.

She eventually opens the door, keeping her distance until another officer arrives at 5:12 a.m.

Delay in medical attention

Officers didn’t have a medical pack for mouth-to-mouth, so they waited to start R.

An inmate hands the corrections officer something a couple of minutes later at 5:14 a.m., and chest compressions begin.

There wasn’t a defibrillator – or AED – in Jeremy’s dorm. Another corrections officer had to run to another area of the prison to get one.

It’s now been more than an hour since Jeremy fell to the floor.

According to the 911 call, which Officer Hardin did not make, an officer tells dispatch Jeremy is “purple and blue. They started chest compressions, and they have the AED and still, unresponsive.”

Heart event

Jeremy was pronounced dead at 6:40 a.m.

The official cause was listed as “acute cardiac dysrhythmia,” a heart event, which makes the timeline even more heartbreaking.

When seconds mattered, we found no one did anything to help Jeremy for 65 minutes.

Officer Hardin later itted there was a failure to act on her part that resulted in Kelley dying.

Still, an investigation found no reason to charge Officer Hardin with a crime. She wasn’t fired, suspended or even reprimanded.

Instead, she kept working as a corrections officer.

Eventually, she resigned, but only when she became the center of another investigation.

This time, it was for alleged misconduct regarding a relationship with an inmate.

“They just let him die.”

“Everything’s changed since he’s been gone,” said Pilz. “I miss him so much.”

Jeremy’s missed so much, too.

He missed his daughter graduating from high school. He missed his son becoming a father; Jeremy never was able to be a grandfather.

However, his mother and sister believe Jeremy finally beat his addiction.

Toxicology reports show no drugs in his system.

“He was clean those last months, and he was doing well, and then they let him die. I mean, they just let him die. They just let him die,” said Pilz. “They just watched him lay on the floor and wouldn’t do anything about it.”

Lawsuit settlement

Jeremy’s family did do something about it.

They sued the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and settled for more than half-a-million dollars, almost the maximum allowed by law in a case like this.

They are not alone.

When the I-TEAM went looking, we found hundreds more mistakes happening in South Carolina jails and prisons – some deadly.

While families like Jeremy’s lose so much, we found you, the taxpayer, are also paying the price.

How much? The I-TEAM is continuing to investigate.

We did get in touch with the former corrections officer at the center of this.

Shermere Hardin tells the I-TEAM she doesn’t the night Jeremy died because it was a long time ago, adding she would not be talking to the I-TEAM about it.

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