CLAYTON, Mo. — Daniel Stout, 31, wouldn’t have died a slow, painful and preventable death had St. Louis County Justice Center staffers done their jobs, according to a lawsuit filed by his mother.
He was vomiting coagulated blood that one corrections officer described as “motor oil” and hadn’t had a bowel movement for eight days at the time of his death in June 2019 — but was repeatedly denied access to medical care while at the jail in Clayton, according to the suit.
He died one hour after arriving at the Eastern Reception Diagnostic Correctional Center in Bonne Terre to continue serving a sentence on a drug possession charge, according to his attorney, J.C. Pleban.
An autopsy showed he died from peritonitis due to a perforated ulcer.
It was the fourth inmate from the St. Louis County Justice Center to die within a six-month period — and after County Executive Sam Page said he was taking steps to improve conditions at the jail.
“County Executive Page was quoted as having said just a couple weeks before that we need to do whatever is possible to prevent this from happening in the future,” Pleban said. “Yet a couple weeks later, we had another death from someone who was clearly complaining about medical problems and clearly needed medical attention but was ignored.
“And so it was the responsibility of those in charge to make sure that there was change and, in our opinion, there was not. In our opinion, if there was change, you wouldn't have had the death of Mr. Stout.”
Page’s spokesman Doug Moore said Page does not comment on pending litigation.
Part of the changes Page announced was tasking the St. Louis County Police Department with putting a commander at the jail.
Then Chief Jon Belmar chose Lt. Col. Troy Doyle.
Doyle along with three unnamed corrections officers along with the county are now named as defendants in Stout’s mother’s lawsuit.
“His mother says he was a happy go lucky guy and he had these problems, and he was in jail, but I think the important part with that is simply because someone is in jail, doesn't mean that you as a jailing system or as a county get to take away basic fundamental human rights to medical care,” Pleban said, adding that his client, Angela Malcich is still too distraught over her son’s death to talk about it publicly.
Malcich’s lawsuit also names the three other inmates who died before her son did:
Jan. 18, 2019: Larry “Jay” Reavis died after one or more county employees failed to provide medical care knowing he was detoxing, had tremors, paroxysmal sweats, anxiety, agitation, headaches, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Even after someone told a guard that Reavis may have had a seizure, he was not given medical care until he was found unresponsive in his cell and already in rigor mortis, according to the suit.
Feb. 23, 2019: John M. Shy bled to death from an intestinal hemorrhage despite two nurses seeing him lying in blood and groaning for at least 15 minutes before anyone entered his cell. Jail staff had muted his call button. He reportedly had been screaming for seven hours, and one staffer said if he doesn’t stay quiet, he will be put in a restraint chair, according to the lawsuit.
March 1, 2019: Lamar Catchings died from treatable leukemia because he did not receive appropriate medical treatment. He had stopped eating two weeks before he died and complained of hearing loss. A week before his death, he couldn’t walk out of court and needed a wheelchair.
The lawsuit also mentions Jo’Von Mitchell who died on Dec. 27, 2019. He was unable to get off the floor to visit a family member and was having trouble walking, complaining of pain before he was transported to the hospital. A correctional officer falsified his report to make it look as if he responded immediately to Mitchell’s health emergency, which he did not, according to the lawsuit.
Stout’s family is the second family to file suit against the county related to the jail deaths.
Reavis’ family filed suit in October 2019.
He was in jail for violating a protective order and was detoxing due to alcohol consumption, according to his family’s lawsuit. An autopsy listed an underlying cause of death as chronic ethanol use, according to the lawsuit.
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