December 23, 2024
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Suicidal inmate dies from injuries

BANGOR – A Penobscot County Jail inmate died Tuesday afternoon at a Bangor hospital, three days after he tried to hang himself.

Charles Leslie Mushero, 47, died at about 5 p.m. after he was taken off life support at Eastern Maine Medical Center, Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross confirmed. A family member reached earlier by phone said that Mushero had died.

The death was the second suicide this year at a county jail in Maine. The incident is under review by the state Department of Corrections.

The inmate had been in critical condition at EMMC since Saturday when a corrections officer making a check of Mushero’s cell about 12:40 p.m. found him hanging from his cell door with a sheet around his neck.

Corrections officers had made checks of his cell every 15 minutes as part of their regular routine. Mushero wasn’t under suicide watch, according to jail officials.

Chief Deputy Troy Morton told the Penobscot County commissioners during their Tuesday morning meeting that Mushero actually was discovered about 12 minutes after the last check.

Morton and Lt. Linda Golden, assistant jail administrator, reviewed tapes taken by security cameras in the cellblock and determined that the “officer was in that area for quite a bit more” than required, the chief deputy told the commissioners.

A portable automated defibrillator was brought in and Mushero hooked up to it, although the defibrillator indicated that a shock wasn’t needed, that Mushero’s heart was still beating, Golden told the commissioners.

At the time of the commissioners’ meeting, Mushero still was in critical condition at the Bangor hospital.

“It’s just another one of those unfortunate situations, an unforeseen thing that happens,” Morton said during the meeting.

In a prepared statement released late Tuesday afternoon, Ross acknowledged Mushero’s death.

“Our deepest sympathy goes out to the family and friends of Charles Mushero,” Ross said in a prepared statement.

Mushero’s suicide was the first at the Penobscot County Jail this year, but it is the second in less than six months at the facility.

Jeffrey McKenney died in December four days after he hanged himself with a bedsheet at the jail in Bangor. The jail has had three suicide-related deaths in the last 31/2 years and 28 very serious suicide attempts, Ross said.

Increasingly Penobscot County Jail has been finding itself dealing with inmates with mental health or medical problems, and sometimes both. Through a contract, Acadia Hospital in Bangor provides coverage at the jail seven days a week, and the jail has trained crisis intervention team officers on every shift, Ross said.

Earlier this month, Richard Prado, 34, of Brownville hanged himself with his bedsheet in Piscataquis County Jail.

Prado’s death was the first suicide this year in the state at a county jail and the first at the Piscataquis jail in 30 years.


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