State silent on details of inmate's death; mother keeps asking
- Jamie Duffy
- Oct 13
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 13
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---Louisa Young is still waiting to hear from the Indiana Department of Correction concerning her son’s death.
Damarcus Thomas turned 25 on his deathbed, so to speak.
Thomas was transferred to St. James Ascension Hospital in Indianapolis Sept. 27 after he was found “unresponsive” somewhere at the Pendleton Correctional Facility, a state prison.
A day later, her family was called with the information that he was on a respirator and that Young and her mother would be limited to two-hour visits. Two hours and that was all.
On Oct. 2, the doctor, who had already said the situation “didn’t look good” informed Young that her son would be taken off life support on Oct. 6. That coincides with the date his records were altered in state online documents.
She has not received word of his death date, although she believes it was the Sept. 27, the day he was taken to the hospital.
“I believe my baby was dead when he made it to that hospital,” she said.
She still doesn’t know why the strapping 6’2” healthy young man died. The doctor hinted that he was “cut down.” However, from what Young has learned, the marks on his neck were around the collarbone, not around the jawline that would indicate a suicide by hanging.
“There’s no way that rope didn’t go up,” Young said. When she saw him in the hospital, he had a busted lip and a chipped tooth.
Now she wants answers, but neither the prison nor the Indiana Department of Correction has called or emailed her, despite her daily attempts at communication with them.
Original article:
The Probable Cause sent an email to IDOC Thursday and Friday received an email response from Anna Quick, IDOC’s chief legal officer.
“Thanks for your email. We do not provide confidential information for incarcerated individuals without a signed release of information. I have forwarded your email to our offender records department and we will follow up with the emergency contact and/or next of kin for Thomas,” Quick stated.
Young said she filled out a form to request records and sent it certified mail which cost around $6.
Dealing with these kinds of details is difficult when an inmate is alive and say, needing medical attention, but to have to live with the smack of grief on top of what appears to be an indifferent bureaucracy is unbearable.
The loss of income from staying home instead of working, finding funds to transport the body from Anderson to Fort Wayne and desperately seeking his personal belongings are a hardship.
She will need to go back to work soon. Three days leave for grieving is what her company offers, Young said. She applied for FMLA or Family Medical Leave, but she couldn’t find a category that fit her situation on the application.
“I reached out to my boss to help me get through that. FMLA is pending,” she said. She hasn’t found any kind of help through the Aboite Township office where she lives, she added.
“My checks don’t even have 40 hours on it,” said Young, who works at a nursing home.
What was appalling, Young said, was the aggressiveness of hospital staff seeking to harvest his organs.
“They were like f—-ing vultures. They were like ‘hey we’re sorry for your loss, but can we have his heart and liver, whatever I would say yes to. They wanted it all,” Young said.
No one has asked her where or when they could send his belongings.
“My son writes. This whole system of cold-hearted (people) is allowed to govern us,” Young said.
Added to the funeral costs will be the $600 transport fee to ship the body after “his body was pushed out of the hospital after they were done with it.” There was an autopsy, but she’d like to get her own autopsy.
That may or may not happen as his body lies at Nelson Memorial Gardens funeral home here in Fort Wayne.
She will likely have his body cremated so she can take her son with her.
“I’m not staying here once all this is done,” she said.
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