“We Killed Him”: Alabama Jailers Cut Plea Deals After Detainee Freezes to Death
On July 31, 2024, a former guard at Alabama’s Walker County Jail agreed to plead guilty to federal charges filed after a detainee was left naked on his cell floor for two weeks and froze to death in the winter of 2023—in a concrete bunker known as the “freezer” because guards manipulated fans to vent cold air from outside. A second guard then entered a plea agreement the following month in the death of the detainee, Tony Mitchell.
Mitchell, 33, died of hypothermia on January 26, 2023, after arriving at a hospital with a body temperature of just 72 degrees Fahrenheit. In the first plea agreement filed in federal court for the Northern District of Alabama, former guard Joshua Conner Jones confessed to one count of conspiracy to deprive Mitchell’s civil rights. Fellow guard Karen Kim Elsie Kelly agreed to plead guilty to the same charge on August 13, 2024.
When he was arrested on January 12, 2023, Mitchell—who had a history of drug addiction—had painted his face black. A cousin had reported that he was rambling about portals to heaven and hell in his home, and deputies performing a welfare check said that he fired a handgun at them before fleeing into the woods in the cold. After they got him to the jail, guards put him in a suicide smock, though he had not threatened to kill himself.
As Jones’ plea agreement noted, Mitchell “was almost always naked, wet, cold, and covered in feces while lying on the cement floor without a mat or blanket.” By his second week in the lockup, he was “largely listless and mostly unresponsive to questions.” The hospital doctor on duty when Mitchell died wrote, “I am not sure what circumstances the patient was held in incarceration, but it is difficult to understand a rectal temperature of 72°F. while someone is incarcerated in jail.” County Coroner Joey Vick ruled the death a homicide on March 4, 2024, noting the cause was “medical neglect”.
In her plea agreement, Kelly said that it was unidentified command staffers who ordered Mitchell kept on suicide watch, after a jail nurse “ceded her authority” to them. Kelly, who was nightshift supervisor for seven of the 15 nights that Mitchell was in the jail, said she was cowed by the supervisors, who “berated” her when she ordered the cell cleaned of feces and rotting food; another reportedly prevented her from providing the detainee a floor mat, nor could she give him a towel on “rare” occasions he was allowed to shower. The supervisors called Mitchell “combative,” Kelly recalled, but she saw no sign of that. See: United States v. Kelly, USDC (N.D. Ala.), Case No. 6:24-cr-00311.
Jones’ plea agreement also said that jailers lied to healthcare staff that Mitchell was too combative to be medically evaluated until the day he was found unresponsive. When questioned about the circumstances of Mitchell’s confinement, they replied that “he gets what he gets since he shot at cops.” Jones admitted that he and five co-conspirators were liable for the death, saying: “[C]ollectively we did it. We killed him.” His plea agreement did not name the alleged co-conspirators, but their mention indicated that more charges may follow. Jones also agreed to plead guilty to depriving the civil rights of another unnamed detainee whom he assaulted. See: United States v. Jones, USDC (N.D. Ala.), Case No. 6:24-cr-00298.
Kelly filed suit in the same Court in February 2023, accusing Sheriff Nick Smith of firing her in retaliation after she leaked word of surveillance video showing Mitchell’s death, which ultimately sparked an FBI investigation. A separate lawsuit filed that same month by Mitchell’s mother, Margaret Mitchell, accuses Sheriff Smith and 13 jailers of “one of the most appalling cases of jail abuse the country has seen,” pointing to the surveillance video that showed guards “clowning” while Mitchell lay naked and dying in his cell. Two nurses named as Defendants blamed guards for a delay in summoning an ambulance; they are reportedly cooperating with the FBI investigation, for which both suits have been stayed. PLN will update developments as they are available. Mitchell is represented by attorneys Jon C. Goldfarb, Christina M. Malmat and L. William Smith with Wiggins Childs Pantazis Fisher & Goldbarb in Birmimgham. See: Mitchell v. Smith, USDC (N.D. Ala.), Case No. 2:23-cv-00182.
Additional sources: NBC News, WBRC, WTVM