Inmate dies in apparent suicide, sheriff’s office says. Sister says jail could have done more

A 38-year-old inmate at the Manatee County jail died in an apparent suicide after he hanged himself with a bed sheet, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office incident report.

William Monette was found Aug. 24 in his cell hanging by a bed sheet tied to a grate above his cell’s door.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Randy Warren said Monette was not on suicide watch, nor did he make any written or verbal indications that he intended to harm himself.

“He was in an area of the jail that is checked every 30 minutes,” Warren said. “He was last observed around 4:22 during routine cell checks and then found at 4:50 a.m.”

That cell block is where inmates suffering from mental health issues are regularly housed, he explained. According to the investigative summary, jail staff was aware that Monette had a history of suicidal thoughts.

Monette’s death is being called a suicide, but the medical examiner’s office will make the ruling on cause and manner of death.

The sheriff’s office will not be releasing video surveillance footage that captured the incident.

Monette’s sister, Dana Griswald, told the Bradenton Herald on Tuesday that there is more to the story that jail officials are leaving out.

“I know my brother,” she said. “Yes, he had issues but needed to be on medication and the medication they had him on was making his hallucinations worse. It was making the voices in his head worse. He went back to jail on purpose this time because he wanted to get help and they didn’t help him.”

According to an investigative summary by homicide detective Daniel Dickerman, sheriff’s office staff at the jail knew about Monette’s mental health history, and that he was on medication dispensed by the jail’s nursing staff.

But Griswald said the jail got his medication wrong and that it only made it worse for her brother. A letter was found in his cell in “indicating that Monette was hallucinating and having odd dreams. He wanted help with his medications, but never turned in the form,” Dickerman stated in his report.

Having viewed surveillance video footage, Dickerman described how Monette climbed on a sink while appearing to tie the bed sheet around his neck and to the grate above the door. That video is not of just the cell he was in however, but a wide-angle of the entire cell block.

“Around 0430 Monette applies pressure to the neck and hangs in that position until 0450,” Dickerman wrote.

A jail deputy told detectives that Monette “appeared in his normal demeanor” prior to killing himself, according to the report.

Monette was in the Manatee County jail on burglary charges stemming from a June arrest. According to jail records, he had an extensive criminal history dating to 1999 with multiple burglary and aggravated domestic battery charges.

According to the Florida Department of Corrections, Monette was sentenced to four years for aggravated battery in 2000, released in 2005 and sentenced to another five years for aggravated battery.

In 2014, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, was released in June 2016 and returned to prison for two years in 2017 on burglary charges.

Warren said jail deputies responded immediately to what they found, calling for medical help while attempting to free Monette from the bed sheet.

Deputies placed him on the floor and began life-saving measures as they waited on medical staff, which responded to the cell while EMS was dispatched to the jail. EMS arrived at 5:06 a.m. and Monette was pronounced dead at 5:08 a.m.

Warren said detectives from the criminal investigative division responded to conduct a death investigation and “found the scene to be consistent with a death by hanging that was self-inflicted,” Warren said. “There are no signs of foul play.”

This is the second suicide inside the jail in the past four months. In April, a 65-year-old inmate accused of sexual battery on a child died after he hanged himself.

Herald staff writer Jessica De Leon contributed to this report.

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 11:19 AM.