A 39-year-old female being held in the Guilford County jail in High Point is the latest in a long string of inmate deaths in the county’s two detention centers – but, despite that long chain, deaths involving female inmates, like the one that occurred this week, have been considerably less common.
Stephanie Grant, 39, died at a local hospital on Wednesday evening, Aug. 5, after detention officers at the High Point Detention Center found her in medical distress in her cell Tuesday morning.
Grant had been arrested only one day before she became ill.
A review of reported deaths involving women held in Guilford County’s two jails going back to 2015 found four other cases that could be verified – in 2015, 2018, 2020 and 2023.
All four of those earlier cases involved women held at the Greensboro Detention Center rather than at the High Point facility.
The review included inmates who suffered the medical event that ultimately led to their death while incarcerated, including those who were transported from a jail to a hospital before they died.
In Grant’s case, detention staff observed her in medical distress inside her assigned cell on Tuesday morning, Aug. 4, and escorted her to the detention center’s medical unit.
After evaluating her, medical staff called Guilford County Emergency Medical Services. When EMS personnel arrived, Grant became unresponsive. Emergency treatment was provided at the jail and Grant was transported to a hospital, where she was admitted.
She was pronounced dead at approximately 7:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Grant had been arrested by the High Point Police Department on Monday, Aug. 3, on charges of felony possession of cocaine, misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and felony failure to appear on a Rowan County charge of larceny of a motor vehicle.
There have been a good number of inmate deaths involving the county’s two jails in recent years, though the circumstances vary considerably. Some have been suicides, while other inmates have entered the jails with serious medical conditions or substance abuse problems.
Grant was being held under a $15,000 secured bond on the Guilford County charges and a $30,000 secured bond on the Rowan County charge.
The Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Investigative Unit and the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner are currently investigating Grant’s death.
The most recent previous female inmate death found in a review of publicly available records occurred about three years ago.
On Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, detention officers at the Greensboro jail found 34-year-old Jennifer Renee Todd unresponsive in her cell at about 7:15 a.m.
Detention and medical staff attempted to save her and EMS arrived about 11 minutes later.
Todd was taken to a hospital, where she died shortly before 10 a.m.
Todd had been arrested two days earlier on charges of possession of stolen goods and possession of drug paraphernalia.
She was originally scheduled to make her first court appearance Thursday, Oct. 26, but the courthouse unexpectedly closed and the hearing was moved to 2 p.m. Friday. Todd died about four hours before that hearing was scheduled to take place.
Three years before Todd’s death, 24-year-old Anna Chris Dominguez died following a remarkably short stay in the Greensboro jail: Dominguez was booked at 2:20 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2020, after being charged with driving while impaired, simple possession of a controlled substance and vehicle registration and insurance violations.
At about 5:15 a.m. – less than three hours after she was booked – she was found unresponsive in a holding cell.
Detention staff and emergency medical personnel attempted to save her and she was transported to Cone Hospital where she was pronounced dead at 6:18 a.m.
Those circumstances drew considerable scrutiny afterward: A timeline released by the Sheriff’s Office at that time showed that Dominguez had originally been found passed out in a vehicle. She told a Greensboro police officer she’d taken Percocet and alcohol, and she had a history of alcoholism and liver disease.
A 911 call initially brought a request for EMS, but Dominguez declined medical treatment and the request was canceled. Police subsequently took her to Moses Cone Hospital for a blood draw before she was booked into the jail.
The Sheriff’s Office later conducted an internal investigation into whether staff adequately monitored Dominguez during the short period she was incarcerated.
Another female inmate death two years earlier became the subject of protests, litigation and years of controversy: Tasharra LaChelle Thomas, 33, died in the Greensboro Detention Center shortly before midnight on May 2, 2018.
Thomas had been arrested April 29 on drug possession and parole violation charges and spent roughly three days in jail before she died.
An autopsy by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Thomas died from sepsis due to infective endocarditis – an infection of the inner lining of the heart – and classified her death as natural.
The medical examiner reported that Thomas had a history of chronic intravenous drug use and that no injuries caused or contributed to her death.
Thomas’ family disputed the official account and eventually filed a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging abuse and inadequate treatment. The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office strongly denied allegations that Thomas had been physically abused while in custody and said its criminal and administrative investigations found no such abuse.
The Sheriff’s Office ultimately released more than 23 hours of jail surveillance footage after a Superior Court judge authorized its release.
Going back another three years produces one more death that belongs in the history – though it differs technically from the others because the woman was no longer officially in the custody of the Sheriff’s Office when she died.
Ellin Beth Schott, 57, was arrested by Greensboro police on Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, on charges stemming from panhandling without a license.
Schott had a seizure disorder and reported during the jail intake process that she suffered from seizures and took Keppra and Gabapentin, medications theat are used to control seizures.
According to a medical examiner’s investigation later obtained by Triad City Beat, Schott complained of medical problems during her weekend in jail and was observed shaking and trembling. Early Monday morning, Aug. 24, officers heard her breathing heavily and found her perspiring and breathing rapidly. Medical personnel reported that she appeared to be suffering repeated seizures.
EMS took her from the jail to Cone Hospital.
The criminal charges against Schott were dismissed several hours after she was transferred to the hospital, and jail records show she was released from custody 10 minutes after the charges were dropped – two days before she died.
The medical examiner concluded that Schott’s immediate cause of death was complications from prolonged seizure activity.
Because Schott had technically been released from custody before she died, her death wasn’t initially reported by the Sheriff’s Office to the medical examiner as an in-custody death. However, the medical crisis leading to her hospitalization began while she was an inmate in the Greensboro jail.
North Carolina law now explicitly states that when a prisoner in the custody of a local confinement facility dies, the medical examiner must be notified regardless of the prisoner’s physical location at the time of death. The jail administrator must also submit a written report to state and local health officials within five days.
The relative scarcity of female deaths in the Guilford County jails shouldn’t necessarily be interpreted to mean that women are inherently less likely than men to die while incarcerated.
That’s because are simply far fewer women in local jails.
According to the US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, women made up only 14 percent of the country’s local jail population in 2023.
In fact, federal mortality statistics have at times found little difference in the death rates of male and female jail inmates.
From 2000 through 2013, the average annual mortality rate was 137 deaths per 100,000 male jail inmates and 133 per 100,000 female inmates – virtually the same rate despite men accounting for nearly eight times as many deaths.
In 2018, the federal government actually recorded a higher mortality rate for female jail inmates – 162 deaths per 100,000 – than for male inmates, at 152 per 100,000.
The numbers also demonstrate something striking about jail deaths: They often occur soon after someone is locked up.
In 2018, about 40 percent of all local jail deaths nationwide occurred during the inmate’s first seven days in custody. That pattern is striking and evident in the Guilford County female cases.
Dominguez died only hours after she was booked. Todd died less than two days after her arrest. Grant was found in medical distress the morning after her arrest.
Schott’s medical emergency occurred during her third day in jail.
Thomas had been incarcerated for about three days when she died.
The investigation into Grant’s death remains ongoing, and no cause of death has been announced.
