Woman Dies After Being in Kerr County, Texas Jail

The Kerr County Sheriff’s Department, located in Kerrville, Texas, filed a custodial death report regarding the death of Heather Renee Rodriguez. Ms. Rodriguez was only 45 years old at the time of her death. We provide information we obtained from that report, and we do not make any allegation of any wrongdoing against anyone.

The Kerr County Sheriff’s Department filed the death report on April 5, 2021 at 10:41 a.m. The report was completed and/or filed by a chief deputy of the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department.

The summary portion of the report reads in its entirety:

“On March 16, 2021, Inmate Heather Rodriguez was found unresponsive, not breathing, and with no pulse at approximately 12:22 PM. Correctional Officers enter her single cell and assess Ms. Rodriguez and start CPR at 12:27 PM. Jail Medical personnel arrive and takeover CPR until EMS arrives at 12:34 PM. Ms. Rodriguez is transported to Peterson Regional Medical Center, where they were able to get a pulse back, but CT scans showed serve loss of brain activity/ Brain Hypoxia. Ms. Rodriguez is moved to ICU, is only alive by the ventilator, until next of kin is found and notified. The Mother, father and one son arrive and request she be taken off life support. Ms. Rodriguez is pronounced dead at 10:00 PM on March 16, 2021. Ms. Rodriguez is transported to the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office for an Autopsy, results are pending at this time.”

Therefore, the report provides virtually no information regarding how Ms. Rodriguez died, whether through potential self-harm or otherwise. We mention potential self-harm only because of other information in the report. The report indicates that Ms. Rodriguez made suicidal statements and exhibited mental health problems. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the State has recently been requiring shorter custodial death reports, two pages instead of what had been approximately six pages. This provides even less information to the public, and family members of those who die in Texas county jails, regarding what is occurring.

Our Texas civil rights law firm litigates and has litigated a number of cases regarding jail deaths in Texas. Unfortunately, we see significant issues with failure to care for inmates with mental health issues, and a significant portion of our cases involve death as a result of suicide. The 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right of pre-trial detainees in jails across the United States to receive reasonable medical care, reasonable mental health care, and to be protected from self-harm tendencies and/or assault by other inmates. If jailers exhibit deliberate indifference to these needs, or if a policy, practice, or custom of a city or county exhibits the same deliberate indifference, and a person dies as a result, then certain surviving family members may have claims under the United States Constitution. Such claims are filed pursuant to a federal statute, usually in federal court.

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.