A man died after he was “eaten alive” by bugs in a filthy Georgia jail cell, where he been held for 3 months. (Read More Here).
The cell was so dirty that a worker who entered it wore a safety suit to protect from hazardous materials.
Lashawn Thompson was slumped over in a cell at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta when a detention officer came to check on him in September. The cell was so dirty that a worker who entered it wore a safety suit designed to protect from hazardous materials, according to jail records.
But what made matters even worse was when he found out he had died in the psychiatric wing — covered in sores and bites from bed bugs and lice. He was held there for three months when an officer found him. But by that point, his family couldn’t even recognize him.
“He was definitely a heavy-set guy and from those pictures, he looks totally different,” McCrae said. “He’s not the same person.”
The pictures of Thompson’s dead body covered in sores and bites are graphic and the pictures of his cell show the filthy conditions. Officers were unable to resuscitate Thompson in the cell, where he’d been held for around three months. An autopsy could not determine his cause of death, but the report described an “extremely severe” infestation of small insects across Thompson’s body. His face, upper and lower extremities were pockmarked with cuts and lesions from repeated skin-picking, the report said.
But to Thompson’s family, the cause of his death is clear. The family said Thompson was brought to the psych wing because the jail was aware he was schizophrenic.
“The loss was unbearable,” McCrae said. “Nobody should see those type of pictures.”
The family hired an attorney to conduct their own investigation in order to determine whether the bed bugs caused the infection, which led to Thompson’s death.
“They put that man in that cell and left him there to die, ” said Michael Harper, the family’s attorney.
His brother remembers him as an outgoing person who everyone enjoyed being around.
