Alaska News

Anchorage jail inmate dies of apparent suicide

A woman died of an apparent suicide at the Anchorage Correctional Complex Saturday, Alaska State Troopers and Department of Corrections officials confirmed Wednesday.

DOC officials have not yet released the woman's name or cause of death.

Department officials made no public announcement about the woman's death Saturday and did not confirm the death until four days later, despite repeated inquiries.

Alaska State Troopers were notified at 9:23 a.m. Saturday that an inmate had died, AST spokeswoman Megan Peters wrote.

"A corrections officer found the inmate unresponsive from what appeared to be a suicide attempt," Peters wrote.

Staff performed CPR until the fire department arrived; emergency responders pronounced the woman dead at 10:07 a.m.

Spokeswoman Sherrie Daigle said the department wouldn't release the woman's name or any details about her death until her next of kin had been notified.

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"We are working closely with AST to accomplish this task, but it has been difficult to locate the family in this case," Daigle said Wednesday.

Female prisoners typically only go through the intake process at the Anchorage jail before being transferred to Hiland Mountain Correctional Center, the state's only women's prison.

But for the past year, the DOC has been housing some female pre-trial detainees in a housing mod at the Anchorage jail to relieve overcrowding at Hiland.

It's not clear where in the jail the woman died.

She was the second inmate to die at the Anchorage jail in a three-day span.

On May 21, a 26-year-old prisoner named Alexis Hathaway died after being found in respiratory distress in his cell. He had been booked on a felony DUI charge less than two days earlier.

Hathaway was sick before he died, said Eugene Bourdon, who says he was cellmates with him.

"He was puking all day," Bourdon said.

Hathaway seemed to be trying to "tough it out," Bourdon said. Bourdon didn't hear or see him ask for medical help.

Bourdon and another cellmate noticed he was "gasping for air" and notified correctional officers, who started resuscitation efforts, he said.

Hathaway was pronounced dead at 10:42 p.m. on May 21.

Michelle Theriault Boots

Michelle Theriault Boots is a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She focuses on in-depth stories about the intersection of public policy and Alaskans' lives. Before joining the ADN in 2012, she worked at daily newspapers up and down the West Coast and earned a master's degree from the University of Oregon.

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