Family Seeks Answers About Suspect’s Death : Police: The mother of a man who died in custody says he had been sick recently. Police say he never told them he was ill.

Family and friends of a robbery suspect who died in police custody this week after paramedics concluded that he was feigning illness said they are baffled by his death, even though he had complained of being sick in recent months.

Demond Michael Johnson, 23, died Wednesday evening after being arrested on suspicion of robbery and taken to the Devonshire Division station in Chatsworth.

Johnson’s mother, Roxie McKay, 44, said she only learned of her son’s death the following night when she went to file a missing person report at the Van Nuys Division and was told that he died while in police custody. McKay said she is considering legal action.

“I want to get to the bottom of this,” McKay said in an interview. “If it was foul play I want to know that, but if my son was involved in something I want to know that, too.”

According to police, Johnson never complained of feeling ill when he was booked into custody about 5 p.m. Wednesday, but officers summoned paramedics when they noticed he had begun shaking.

Paramedics told police that Johnson was “feigning illness” and did not need to be hospitalized, police said. Even so, a sergeant ordered that Johnson be taken to the jail in Van Nuys Division, which is staffed by medical personnel. While en route to the jail, police said, he fell into a series of seizure-like attacks.

Johnson was subsequently rushed to Valley Presbyterian Hospital and was in full cardiac arrest when he arrived, hospital officials said. He was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m.

Autopsy results came back inconclusive Friday, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier, who added that no significant injuries were discovered on Johnson’s body. Toxicology and other test results may help determine the cause of death.

McKay said her son disappeared Wednesday afternoon after he walked his fiancee’s daughter to preschool. His fiancee, Michelle Simmons, 27, said that before Johnson left he asked her to run a bath for him, assuring her he would return home shortly.

But when Johnson failed to come back--and other friends and family members had not heard from him--his mother and fiancee said they went to the Van Nuys Division to file the missing person report.

Simmons and McKay said a female police officer told them that Johnson had complained of stomach pains while in custody--a point of contention with police--and that when a decision was made to transfer him to the other jail, he fell into seizures and later died.

“Something is not right,” Simmons said as she broke into tears. “They got the wrong person for the wrong thing.”

Neither woman could remember the officer’s name. Lt. Pete Trilling of the Van Nuys Division said Friday that his officers did not make the remark. “We didn’t give them that information because we didn’t have it,” he said. “We put them in touch with the coroner’s office.”

In Friday’s Times, a story concerning Johnson’s death contained an editing error that incorrectly reported the Police Department’s account of the death. According to police, Johnson did not complain to officers that he was feeling ill.

Johnson’s mother and fiancee said he had not been feeling well in recent months and that they had urged him to see a doctor. But Johnson, employed part time at a Van Nuys-based market research company, never made an appointment because he did not have health insurance, they said.

Simmons said Johnson suffered from neck, back and stomach pains. McKay added that her son had been sick no less than five times since Christmas.

“He would throw up and he would get colds,” McKay said. “I remember I stayed up with him one night when he wasn’t feeling well and he said, ‘Mama, I don’t think I’m going to make it.’ ”

McKay also said she suspects police may have targeted her son as a robbery suspect because he was on parole.