March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Probe continues into suicide at jail > New information discovered in death of Kevin Brochu

ROCKLAND — The discovery of new information has delayed the completion of a state investigation into the suicide of Kevin Brochu while he was in custody at the Knox County Jail.

Although he declined to discuss the nature of the information, Ralph Nichols of the Department of Corrections said it was critical to the investigation. Nichols said he hoped the investigation would be wrapped up by the end of the week.

“We ran into something else. As soon as we finish looking into this other thing” the results of the investigation would be turned over to the Attorney General, Nichols said.

Nichols refused to speculate whether the information would provide proof of negligence by jail guards the night Brochu died. He acknowledged, however, that the new information surfaced during a separate investigation.

“We ran across information that was part of another report,” Nichols said.

According to information released by Nichols earlier this month, the state’s preliminary investigation uncovered evidence that the jail’s time logs had been falsified on the night Brochu died. The 34-year-old Brochu was found hanging in his cell at 11 p.m. Aug. 12. He was awaiting sentencing on a number of charges.

At the time of his death Brochu was supposed to be under a “serious suicide watch,” Nichols reported. Jail policy required that he be checked every 15 minutes.

Nichols revealed that the jail’s records of that night established proof that “the logs may have been filled out in advance of the checks.” The investigation also determined that while the doctored logs were signed by a specific guard, that person claimed his signature had been forged.

The investigation determined that the logs had been filled out 30 to 40 minutes in advance of the actual physical cell checks. Also, instead of keeping the logs on the individual cell blocks, they were kept in the jail’s booking room.

Nichols said that when the guards discovered Brochu hanging in his cell an attempt was made to change the log.

“You can see in the log where it was changed,” Nichols said at the time. “Somebody knew they had to put the real times in. Clearly that’s not a standard practice anywhere.”

Knox County Sheriff Daniel Davey said the jail’s procedure for keeping logs had since been changed. The county moved to its new $4.9 million jail last week. Davey said the regulations were upgraded to conform to the needs of the new facility.

Davey said that the person involved with changing the logs had been dismissed. He stressed that the guard was fired for an unrelated violation of jail procedure prior to the state’s discovery of the doctored logs. Davey acknowledged that when investigators told him the logs had been tampered with, it “made my hair stand on end because we were unaware of it at the time.”


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like