I-TEAM UPDATE | ‘Pure neglect’: What’s the price tag for your loved ones?

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - How much is the life of your loved one worth? Could you put a dollar amount on your sibling, parent, spouse or child?

Of course not.

They are priceless.

Their lives are priceless, but an all-new I-TEAM investigation shows state governments can and do put price tags on people. And it’s coming out of your pocket.

You never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

It’s been three years since Beverly Pilz got the call from Trenton Correctional.

Jeremy Kelley was only 44 years old.

“I miss him so much,” said Pilz as tears rolled down her face.

Pilz is Kelley’s mother.

The grief is unbearable because the father of two said he was finally done with drugs. This last arrest, he said, was his last arrest.

“‘I can’t live this life. I have to change.’ He was so set to do it right this time,” said Rhonda Rice, his sister.

Kelley ran out of time on July 20, 2021.

Surveillance video in his dorm shows he fell out of bed, and when he needed help, the corrections officer in charge left him on the floor to die.

Officer Shermere Hardin never rendered aid. She never called 911.

Instead, she went back to her office and turned off the light, possibly to take a nap.

We found she’s been suspended for sleeping on the job twice before. Kelley’s mom and sister didn’t know any of this back then.

All they knew was that something didn’t seem right, and they wanted answers.

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The family sued civilly, but they told the I-TEAM they believe Kelley was likely the victim of a crime.

The day Kelley died, Officer Hardin told SLED agents “he was still breathing” when she went back into the office, but in a second interview, she said “she didn’t know” if he was breathing or not.

She told SLED agents she was about to “bother” him, “but an unknown inmate told her not to.”

Hardin said she thought he “might have been drunk and ed out” but never notified any staff.

Toxicology reports showed no drugs in Kelley’s system, but there was alcohol.

Documents show he had a 0.122. The legal driving limit in South Carolina is 0.08.

That means he was legally too drunk to drive, but he wasn’t at a level considered life-threatening or even when most people get sick.

Still, he shouldn’t have had access to it at all in prison, but SLED doesn’t appear to ask any questions about how or where he got it.

Their focus seems to stay on Officer Hardin, who also its she didn’t see Kelley later that night when she was supposed to count inmates “because it was dark.”

Ultimately, documents show she itted her “failure to act” resulted in Kelley’s death.

“Once he dropped, it was pure neglect from there on out. Pure neglect,” said Pilz.

Agents took this information to 11th Circuit Assistant Solicitor Doug Fender. He “advised against criminal charges based on lack of probable cause.”

He said this didn’t count as “Misconduct in Office” because she didn’t gain anything from failing to act.

SLED closed the case, citing Kelley’s cause of death as “natural.”

Officer Hardin was not fired, nor was she even disciplined at work.

Government employees like Hardin once had total immunity. But in 1986, South Carolina’s Tort Claims Act gave families another way to hold someone able.

Here’s where that price tag on your loved one comes in: South Carolina caps tort payouts.

In Kelley’s case, the limit was $600,000.

Through public records, we found the family settled for just under that at $575,000.

“The money wasn’t the win, the amount. We got no money. I mean, it goes to his kids. The win for me was seeing the max and hurting them. And I wanted to put it out there. I wanted to go to court so it would bring attention,” said Pilz.

The I-TEAM examined tort cases involving South Carolina’s Department of Corrections over the last four years. We only looked at cases where taxpayers shouldered legal costs and when there were payouts.

We found examples in every corner of the state where corrections employees failed, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Case by case and line by line, we built a database and a bottom line: almost $34 million.

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We found you, the taxpayer, paid $21 million to families and $13 million in legal fees.

“The whole story, from start to finish, is just a sad, sad story of nobody caring,” said Pilz.

It’s also a story that’s bigger than Kelley’s, one that’s happening again and again in other jails and prisons.

South Carolina isn’t the only state that caps these payouts. At least 31 other states do as well, including Georgia.

Georgia’s limit in a case like Jeremy’s is $1 million. Other states, like California and Arkansas, have no limit.

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