Man's relatives question his injuries in his Sedgwick County Jail death (+video)

Relatives laid out Uncle Hum’s heavily stained jumpsuit – the one he apparently wore when he died in the Sedgwick County Jail – on his living room floor Friday.

From his orange jumpsuit, a white T-shirt and neon green socks, they could see he suffered what appeared to them to be a bloody death. They did it to show why they have questions about how 55-year-old Pradith Phousomthee died.

His family is asking: How could Phousomthee, nicknamed Uncle Hum, have suffered such injuries last week, just days after he was booked into jail? They suspect that someone killed him. But Sheriff Jeff Easter says that the preliminary finding is that Phousomthee was alone in his cell and that his death was accidental.

Easter confirmed Friday that the inmate had a head wound, that there was blood on his clothing and in his cell.

Relatives say Phousomthee was well-known in Wichita’s Laotian community largely because he was a chef at a family business, Thai Lao Cafe, on South Hillside, not far from where he lived. He fed a lot of people, including the homeless, said his niece, Chantilly Soukamneuth. Wichita had been his home for more than 30 years. He was small but strong and had taught Thai-style kick boxing. He knew how to defend himself.

He had been arrested on Sept. 29, suspected in a stolen-property case, Wichita police records show, and a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy found him not breathing in his one-man cell on Oct. 4.

For the Laotian community, his death is a “sad injustice,” Soukamneuth said.

Video in the jail shows that no one entered Phousomthee’s cell the whole time, until a deputy doing his rounds found him not breathing and started CPR, Easter said Friday. “There’s not any criminal activity in this thing; it was an accidental death,” Easter said in a phone interview after being told of the family’s concerns.

Although the Sheriff’s Office initially told the family that it appeared that the death was a suicide, the coroner’s office has classified it as an accidental death because there was no suicide note or anything to prove it was a suicide, Easter said.

“There’s nothing we can show to prove that he was trying to commit suicide. However, his own actions caused his death,” Easter said. He wouldn’t elaborate. Although he said investigators have “an idea” how Phousomthee died, Easter said he didn’t want to divulge it until investigators can share it with the family first.

Investigators also think they know how long it took for Phousomthee to die of his injuries but won’t disclose it without sharing the information with the family first, he said.

Investigators have been holding off talking to the family until they gather all the facts, including a final autopsy report, which can take months to complete and forward, Easter said.

“I don’t blame the family; I would have questions, too,” he said. “Sometimes we can’t answer them right way.”

Now that he knows of the family’s concerns, he said, “I think it’s imperative that we meet with them next week” on the preliminary findings.

“But it doesn’t mean we’re covering anything up.”

Phousomthee was being held in Pod 6, which holds roughly 49 inmates, Easter said. He wasn’t sure Friday how often the deputy in that pod does rounds to check on inmates. Asked if the deputy could have noticed Phousomthee sooner, Easter said certain injuries can cause death quickly. “We don’t conduct rounds on inmates every two minutes. But again, this is this own person’s actions, not ours,” he said.

So far, there doesn’t appear, “on the face of it,” to be any policy violations by the deputy overseeing the pod, but the final determination will be a part of the internal investigation that won’t be done until the death investigation is completed, he said.

In a news release Oct. 5, the day after Phousomthee died, the Sheriff’s Office said the inmate was “found unresponsive” in his cell about 11 p.m. and that about 11:45 he was pronounced dead. He had been booked into jail on Sept. 30 on felony charges, the statement said.

Phousomthee’s wife, Visai Yangsrila, said a sheriff’s deputy and detective arrived at her home around 3 a.m. and said her husband of 14 years had died. One of the officers said it looked like a suicide; another said investigators weren’t sure, relatives said. She said she couldn’t believe he would kill himself.

Although he had been in trouble at times, he embraced life, his family said.

Now, a picture of him – his hands on his hips – rests on an altar set up in the corner of the living room, where relatives pray. There will be Buddhist funeral ceremonies for family and close friends.

After displaying his stained jail clothes Friday, relatives neatly rebundled them.

“I just hope he didn’t suffer,” Soukamneuth said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 10:15 PM with the headline "Man's relatives question his injuries in his Sedgwick County Jail death (+video)."