Estate of Kansas woman who died by suicide in jail cell says staff ‘ignored warning signs’
The estate of a Medicine Lodge woman who died in her jail cell is suing members of the Barber County Sheriff’s Office, saying they were “deliberately indifferent” and “ignored warning signs” of her emotional instability in the days leading up to her suicide.
Lawyers representing the estate of Olivia Rennaker, in a recently filed wrongful death lawsuit, accuse Sheriff Lonnie Small, Undersheriff Virgil “Dusty” Brewer and four jail staff members of stripping Rennaker of her Constitutionally guaranteed “right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment” by failing to assess her risk of self harm and perform “adequate periodic cell checks” while she was in custody.
Rennaker, 29, hung herself with bedding in her Barber County Jail cell on April 9, 2018, five days after she was arrested in a drug raid where she was found with a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. She was under video and audio surveillance when she died, the lawsuit says. But no one was paying attention.
Her body went undiscovered for more than an hour.
“It is common knowledge that citizens detained in jails are at a much higher risk for suicide,” attorney Michael Kuckelman of Overland Park-based Kuckelman Torline Kirkland law firm said in a news release Friday.
“But Sheriff Small and Undersheriff Brewer are incompetent in jail operations. How many more people need to die in Barber County before taxpayers and voters will have had enough? They ignored Olivia Rennaker when she was in distress.”
A person who answered the phone at the Barber County Sheriff’s Office on Friday afternoon said Small was not in. He did not immediately return an emailed request for comment. Court records list no lawyer for the defendants.
Attorneys for Rennaker’s estate said they expected the defendants to be formally served with the lawsuit Friday following a breakdown in settlement negotiations. The complaint, which seeks monetary damages including funeral costs, was filed March 30 in federal court in Wichita by Rennaker’s ex-husband, Robert Rennaker, on behalf of her estate.
The lawsuit paints a grim picture of how the sheriff’s office operates the Barber County Jail saying it’s poorly run, without accreditation, and has no established written policies or procedures. Employees are untrained and lack oversight. Inmates receive no mental health screening and only limited monitoring, the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, Rennaker was the only female inmate at the jail during her stay, was experiencing drug withdrawals and had tried to make at least 25 phone calls, many to the same numbers.
She received no suicide risk or health screenings and had no visitors, it says. She was being held in lieu of a $5,000 bond.
At about 3:20 p.m. on April 9, 2018, while in her cell, she “wrapped a fabric item around her neck while under a blanket,” it says.
At 3:24 p.m., she climbed the cell bars, tied the fabric to them and jumped “in an effort to hang herself.”
Her actions weren’t immediately effective because the fabric stretched enough for her feet to touch the floor, the lawsuit continues.
At 3:28 p.m., she lifted her feet “to suffocate herself.”
Jail staff didn’t notice her body until 4:52 p.m., nearly an hour and a half later.
“Defendants .... failed to monitor the video surveillance station which captured in real-time Ms. Rennaker’s hanging and eventual death,” the lawsuit says.
“No one went to Ms. Rennaker’s cell to check on her for more than an hour.”
The lawsuit is the second filed by Kuckelman that accuses the Barber County sheriff and undersheriff of wrongful death. He also sued Small and Brewer over the 2017 death of 42-year-old Steven Myers, a Sun City man killed by a homemade bean bag round that Brewer shot at close range.
Kuckelman said his warnings that someone else would be hurt or killed unless Small was removed from office went unheeded by Barber County officials. Brewer, the undersheriff, has been criminally charged with involuntary manslaughter in Myers’ killing and is awaiting trial.
“Defendants have a history of deliberate indifference to the rights of citizens,” Rennaker’s lawsuit alleges.
It goes on to say that Small admitted in a recent deposition that he “failed to implement any policies or procedures” that would’ve led to adequately trained and supervised staff and that employees were “so busy” that they didn’t keep accurate dispatch logs.
This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 5:01 AM.
