Gates Rules Death of County Jail Inmate a Suicide

Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates ruled Thursday that John Ray Stephenson, the County Jail inmate whose death sparked the current furor over the combined sheriff-coroner functions, committed suicide.

Gates said his ruling was based primarily on an independent psychological profile developed by psychiatrists at UC Irvine and on materials found in Stephenson’s cell, which reportedly included a Bible.

The ruling followed a closed-door hearing Thursday, routinely conducted when prison ers die in law enforcement officials’ custody, that included representatives of the district attorney’s office, the Orange County Grand Jury and the county Health Care Agency.

The suicide ruling was not in itself a surprise. Stephenson was found bleeding in his cell on Nov. 4 with cuts apparently inflicted by a jail-issued razor, and he was pronounced dead two days later at Western Medical Center.

The controversy arose when Gates tried to get Stephenson’s psychiatric records, saying they were critical to determine whether the death was a suicide--as it appeared to be--or whether it might have been caused by other factors, for instance, whether taking him off mood-stabilizing drugs affected his ability to know what he was doing.

Court Order Obtained

Health Care Agency officials said Gates had no legal right to see the records; they were turned over only after he obtained a court order. By law, Gates as sheriff would have been prevented from viewing the records, and several county officials raised questions about a possible conflict of interest in the case since Gates was investigating it both as sheriff--manager of the jail--and coroner.

Gates said the records were important in determining why Stephenson was taken off his lithium medication, a mood-stabilizing drug, several weeks before his death, and whether that was a factor in his death. Thursday’s announcement indicated that it essentially was not a factor.

Material found in his cell, which several sources who attended Thursday’s hearing said included a Bible, indicated that Stephenson had the mental ability to decide to end his own life, the coroner ruled.

Robert Love, head of the Health Care Agency, the organization that oversees the doctors and psychiatrists at the jail, said after the ruling, “His findings are consistent with the facts and the knowledge that we have about Mr. Stephenson. Period.”

But Love said he still believes that Stephenson’s psychiatric records were of no value in reaching a decision because jail psychiatrists had not seen Stephenson for at least 45 days before his death.

Dr. Sanford Weimer, county mental health director, said he asked sheriff’s officials at Thursday’s hearing whether Stephenson exhibited any unusual behavior that would have warranted psychiatrists’ attention in the weeks before his death and was told that there had been no evidence of “aberrant behavior.”

“Presumably, he was acting good. And if he was acting bad, nobody was paying any attention to him,” Weimer said.

Gates earlier had raised questions about an unidentified substance found in Stephenson’s blood, but officials who attended Thursday’s hearing said it never was identified. Presumably, the peculiar test results simply indicated some decomposition of the blood, they said.

Stephenson had bled for about 15 minutes before he was found in his cell, according to the autopsy report presented at Thursday’s hearing.

Gates said that while the fatal cut was to a vein in the elbow--usually not as dangerous as a cut to an artery--bleeding occurred rapidly because Stephenson had attached a towel as a tourniquet to his arm.