Inmate dies of hanging in jail cell

An inmate in the Wilkes Sheriff's Department's Women's Detention Center in North Wilkesboro who once resided in Alleghany County took her own life by hanging Sunday night after being put in solitary confinement earlier that day, said authorities.

Jailer Tammy Call found Jacqueline Gail Woodward Lerch, 35, of 1623 Moravian Falls Road, Wilkesboro, unconscious and hanging with one end of a bedsheet tied around her neck and the other end around the top rail of the top bunk of a double-bunk bed about 8:45 p.m., Sunday, stated the report of Capt. Neal Hayes, jail administrator for the sheriff's department.

Call immediately untied the sheet from Lerch's neck and laid the victim on the floor, Hayes reported. Call checked for a pulse but couldn't find one, and then called the Wilkes Communications Center for medical help at 8:47 p.m., he said.

Hayes said the Boston Avenue facility has surveillance cameras, but by law they can't show views inside jail cells. Instead, he said, they show the cell blocks and outsides of cells.

Wilkes Sheriff Dane Mastin said Lerch was hanging "in a sitting position, just off the floor. She could have stood up if she had changed her mind." He said she left a note nearby that indicated she was in a depressed state of mind.

Mastin said Lerch wasn't breathing when found by Call, and Call didn't attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). "To my knowledge, nothing was done wrong procedurally by the jail staff. You could always second-guess and say CPR should have been done," he said.

Hayes said Wilkes jailers aren't required to have CPR training and that Call needed to first call for Wilkes EMS. "We try to have two jailers there at a time," but Call was the only jailer at the facility when the hanging occurred because the other jailer was out sick.

Mastin said Wilkes Emergency Medical Service arrived and determined lifesaving measures would be useless because Lerch was dead. She wasn't taken to the hospital.

Call was very upset and underwent stress debriefing, while other inmates at the facility received counseling, said Mastin.

He said the State Bureau of Investigation is following standard policy by investigating the matter and is still interviewing people. Lerch was arrested at 12:31 a.m. Sunday and placed in the Boston Avenue facility at 1:15 a.m. Sunday. She was arrested on three counts of failure to appear in court on two counts of resisting, obstructing and delaying an officer and one count passing a worthless check.

One of the resisting, obstructing and delaying an officer charges was filed in Wilkes and the other one in Yadkin County. The charge of passing a worthless check was filed in Alleghany County. Mastin said Lerch had numerous other prior charges and convictions.

He said Lerch was placed in the lockdown cell (solitary confinement) for her own security later Sunday because officers had evidence that she stole money from another woman in jail, including that the amount of money in question was on Lerch's person.

Mastin said officers believed Lerch needed to be away from the other inmates for her own protection. He said she also was put in the lockdown cell as a disciplinary action.

Call found Lerch unconscious and in the hanging position while making one of her two checks of the jail cells at different times during every hour. The lockdown room has a bunk bed and a toilet.

Mastin said Lerch was listed as unemployed and Hayes said she previously was married.

Wilkes Coroner Howard Laney, who responded to the incident, said he was told Lerch was originally from Virginia.

The Boston Avenue facility, which opened in late October as the county's women's detention center after originally being a state juvenile detention center, has a capacity for 22 inmates and was holding eight on Sunday.

A complete obituary for Lerch appears on Page 9 of this week's edition.

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