Man Commits Suicide in Val Verde County (Del Rio), Texas Jail

The Val Verde County Sheriff’s Department, in Del Rio, Texas, filed a custodial death report with the Texas Attorney General regarding the death of Matthew Tyler Fox.  Mr. Fox was only 35 years old at the time of his death.  We provide information in this post from that report, and we make no allegation of any wrongdoing against anyone. 

Mr. Fox was arrested on December 16, 2018 at 2:24 p.m.  On December 18, 2018, at approximately 7:34 a.m., investigators from the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office were informed of Mr. Fox’s death.  They learned that it had occurred inside a GEO correctional facility. 

Mr. Fox had been in a medical observation tank due to him going through either drug or alcohol withdrawal.  A corrections officer informed an investigator that a physician had seen Mr. Fox and prescribed medication.  Moreover, correctional officers checked the tank every 25 minutes.  During one cell check, Mr. Fox was discovered by a nurse.  Mr. Fox was leaning by a wall close to a door, with a white sheet over his head.  After the sheet was removed, the nurse discovered that Mr. Fox had used a bed sheet to hang himself and commit suicide.  The Webb County Medical Examiner determined that Mr. Fox’s manner of death was suicide from asphyxiation due to hanging.

The custodial death report was filed on January 16, 2020.  This is a clear violation of Texas law, because a Sheriff’s Department in Texas must report a custodial death within 30 days after the death.  We are uncertain as to why the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Department waited well over one year to file a report regarding Mr. Fox’s death.

Without regard with what happened to Mr. Fox, the United States Constitution protects pre-trial detainees from self-harm, such as suicide.  If a jailer is deliberately indifferent to suicidal tendencies, or a policy, practice, and/or custom of a county leads to such a person’s death, then a jailer and/or county may be liable pursuant to federal law to certain surviving family members.

Written By: Dean Malone

Dean Malone

Dean Malone is the founder of Law Offices of Dean Malone, P.C., a jail neglect civil rights law firm. Mr. Malone earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA, and from Baylor University School of Law with a general civil litigation concentration. Mr. Malone served in several staff positions for the Baylor Law Review, including executive editor. Mr. Malone is an experienced trial lawyer, trying a number of cases to jury verdict and also handling arbitrations through final hearing. He heads the jail neglect section of his law firm, in which lawyers litigate cases involving serious injury and death resulting from jail neglect and abuse. Lawyers frequently refer cases to Mr. Malone due to his focus on this very complicated civil rights practice area.