As soon as her husband hung up the phone, Paula Riley called the Canyon County Jail and begged a deputy to put him on suicide watch.
Riley’s husband, Tim, was arrested last year on a warrant for failing to show up to court on year-old charges. He called home often to talk to his wife and kids. But five days after he was locked up, the conversation changed.
“He was really sad and was saying he was a failure and, ‘You and the kids deserve better, and you should give up on me and leave me,’” Riley said. “Then he said, ‘I love you, remember that,’ and hung up. I knew something was wrong.”
A deputy told Riley that they checked on Tim and he said he was fine. But Riley kept calling, asking staff to check again. She even convinced Tim to ask to see a mental health provider. He told her he filled out a request.
Two days after she first called, Tim hanged himself in the shower.
Riley said the jail never called to tell her.
There were no press conferences. No news coverage. No social media posts. No statements from jail officials or the sheriff. No notifications that a man had died on their watch.
Nor was there any public notification three months earlier, when Twin Falls jail deputies discovered Manuel Chavez-Rodriguez face down on a bed, lifeless. Or this June, when Kootenai County Jail deputies delivered breakfast to detainees and found Gary Neff dead.
In the last five years, Idaho jails have left the public in the dark regarding dozens of deaths of detainees in their care, according to an InvestigateWest review of public records, announcements by officials and media coverage.
