Wayne HS grad dies at Pendleton CF; mother wants to know why
- Jamie Duffy
- Oct 9
- 4 min read
FORT WAYNE, Ind. ---A mother is grieving here after her son died at Pendleton Correctional Facility without explanation.
Damarcus Thomas, who would have been 25 Oct. 19, was sent to St. James Ascension Hospital Sept. 28 and put on a ventilator.
The doctor took him off the ventilator Oct. 6. A death can be confirmed in online records. A life stops and so do charges on the day of death.
Louisa Young has not heard from anyone in the Indiana prison system despite numerous calls to the warden and prison staff.
The doctor gave no explanation for his death, but did utter a sentence fragment that leaned toward possible suicide.
The fragment was “when they cut him down.”
Young said she and her mother were in constant communication with Damarcus and, according to a former prison inmate, the cell block where he was - 6A 24 - is an open dorm so suicide would be difficult.
LINK TO LOUISA YOUNG'S GOFUNDME:
“If you’re telling me he killed himself, I know he wrote a letter,” Young said. “As a mother, sitting back, I don’t see black people hanging themselves when drugs are so readily available.”
Besides, during the two-hour visits she was allowed every day, she saw a busted lip on her son and a chipped tooth, no sign of a suicide.
The markings were not consistent with suicide, she said.
Getting answers from the prison system is notoriously difficult. Even during the two hours visits, the only kind allowed for an inmate’s family, there were two Pendleton guards in his room, never allowing for privacy, Young said.
The guards refused to answer any questions, except to acknowledge that they worked at Pendleton. The only person who helped guide her through the day was a man working hospital security.
Young said her son believed he might be able to be released in 2026. He’d been working toward time cuts.
Before the nightmare of prison, Marcus had been the “good son.” A graduate of Wayne High School, he worked at Amazon and as a home health aide taking care of elderly people, she said.
Just before he was found unresponsive, Young talked to her son on a three way call with her mother.
“I told him I’d put money on the phone.”
Then, she got a call from him at 2 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 27. Calls that she missed.
“That was really weird. He never called me at that time. I know a lot of people in prison. The only time I get calls at two in the morning is when they’re in lock up,” Young said.
Young didn’t see her son until Sept. 30 around 2 p.m. two days after he was admitted to the hospital.
“The doctors never told me anything concerning his condition, just hints telling me that the signs were bad,” Young said.
In fact, she wasn’t able to talk to the doctor that first day; the second day the doctors said they would run tests that Thursday.
“They kept saying they didn’t know how long he was down without oxygen. Whoever brought him - who they didn’t say - they didn’t know either,” Young said.
Friday, Oct. 2, the doctor told Young that her son would have to come off the ventilator. The doctor did tell her that usually when he sees someone “that young with an oxygen level that low, he tries to save him.”
It was up to the warden, apparently, to give the directive to remove the ventilator, she said.
Damarcus had been in prison since 2022 for domestic violence. Young said she called the police on her own son because he took some drug and “flipped out.”
Now she wishes she’d never called for help, but rather found some way to lock him in the basement.
Damarcus's nightmare of imprisonment started, but he didn't have a juvenile record or a record, she said. Looking at online records seems to bear that out.
Damarcus got a relatively sweet deal when the majority of his charges were dismissed. He received a 5-year sentence, suspended for four years with one year in prison. He was to serve four years on probation.
Then he tried to escape from New Castle Correctional Facility which extended his prison time, Young said. He was transferred to Pendleton in August 2024.
Young never expected her son to die in prison. Now she wants answers she believes any mother would be entitled to. She wants his medical records released to her and the autopsy report. She wants his belongings returned to her.
“I have left messages for the warden, the chief warden, and the investigating department! I have reached out to the Indiana state police post located across the street from Pendleton correctional facility, still no one will so much as pick up the phone!” Young wrote in her GoFundMe, asking for answers and help.
It hurts so much the hospital wouldn't let her stay with her son at the hospital.
"You only gave me two hours with my son," Young said. "It was just hell. I know this is hell."