An investigation has been launched in Georgia after a female inmate’s decomposing body was found in her prison cell.
Sheqweetta Vaughan, 32, had possibly been dead for over 24 hours, with a “strong odor of decay” coming from the cell at the Lee Arrendale State Prison, where the temperature was reportedly in the 90s.
Habersham County Deputy Coroner Kenneth Franklin, who conducted an autopsy on Vaughn, following the discovery of her body on July 9, said that the exact cause of death was undetermined.
Franklin’s report, obtained by The Atlanta Journal, states that he was told by prison staff that they had checked on Vaughan at 10.08 a.m. and that she had been found dead at 10.40 a.m.
However, the coroner said that he had arrived at 12.10pm and believed that she had been deceased for two to four hours, though it was hard to be certain.
“But due to the temperature and humidity of the cell in which she was, it would have sped up decomposition considerably, making it difficult for an approximate determination,” Vaughan stated in his report, per the Journal.
The report describes the cell as being at a temperature in the 90s and that there was “not a lot of ventilation.”
Georgia State Department of Corrections says that prisoners like Vaughan, who was being held in a segregation unit, with one person per cell at the time her body was discovered, are checked every 30 minutes.
Dr. Paul Uribe, a former chief of pathology at Fort Benning, in Georgia, agreed that it had likely been much longer than that, due to the state of her body – perhaps even a day.
“There was no checking every 30 minutes,” Uribe told The Journal. “That degree of decomposition doesn’t come within 30 minutes, within an hour or within two hours.”
Vaughan had been jailed just six months after giving birth. Advocacy group Motherhood Beyond Bars said that her death was preventable.
“We met Sheqweetta Vaughan in our childbirth education program at Fulton County Jail, before she was transferred to prison,” the group wrote on social media. “Sheqweetta was funny, always ready to participate in class, and quick to reassure others that a rich life was possible after incarceration and the best was yet to come.
“We are heartbroken that Sheqweetta won’t get the opportunity to create the life she was hoping for. Her death was preventable.”
Amy Ard, executive director of the group, said that Vaughan was serving a two-year sentence and “fully expected” to come home to be with her child.
“This is someone who was in a vulnerable postpartum period. We know that she had some mental health diagnoses. This is a person who should not be put in solitary confinement, and the conditions of that solitary confinement were fairly inhumane,” Ard told The Journal.
“It was way too hot for anyone, postpartum or not, to be in a unit where there’s no airflow, no air conditioning, no air flow, in Georgia in the summertime.”
The Independent has reached out to the coroner’s office as well as the Georgia Department of Corrections for more information on the incident, including the temperature in cells and if the 30-minute check had occurred on Vaughan’s cell on July 9.
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