Apr 15, 2016 By Christine Haines chaines@heraldstandard.Com 6 min read

Jurors heard conflicting testimony Thursday as a coroner’s inquest continued into the death of an inmate at Fayette County Prison last September.

Testimony was heard from 23 witnesses, including corrections and medical staff from the jail, paramedics and the cellmate of the woman who died, taking the jurors late into the evening.

Some of the most emotional testimony came from the corrections officer who was working in the cellblock where the woman, Jeanna Marie Scott, 27, of Newell, was housed the night before she died.

Kristy Richards, who testified that she was fired about two months after the Scott incident for having cigarettes in the prison, said she started work at 11:30 Sept. 5 and was almost immediately stopped on her rounds by Scott, who said she was in pain. Richards said she called Lt. Joe Barnes, who told her there was nothing he could do.

“He said she had just been to Uniontown Hospital and that she was faking,” Richards said.

Richards said she also spoke to him in person during her break around 2 a.m.

“If that lieutenant had done his job and come up at 11:30 and checked on that girl and called the medics, she’d still be alive,” Richards said.

Richards said she wrote two statements about what happened that night, one that detailed the entire night and another that only dealt with incidents in the early morning when the medical staff came back on duty. She said the first report was rejected by her supervisor, who told her to write the second one. Richards said she eventually turned the longer report over to the county’s Human Resources office.

When it was suggested by attorney John Ninosky who was representing Primecare, the health provider at the prison, that Richards had an axe to grind, Richards was vehement that she was telling the truth.

“You can hook me up to a lie detector. I have nothing to lie about. They took my career away; what more can they take away? I have nothing to hide,” Richards said. “When you listen to someone scream and moan and die, you remember that night.”

For his part, Barnes testified that when he arrived for the start of his shift at 10 p.m. Sept. 5, Scott was in the intake chair being evaluated by a nurse.

“Everything checked out okay,” Barnes said.

The nurse went off duty a short time later and there was no more medical staff at the jail until 6:00 the next morning.

“CO Richards called almost directly after shift change, between 11:40 and midnight. She said this girl up here is moaning and breathing hard,” Barnes said. “I understand those are the same symptoms she had before me and Nurse Ashley.”

Barnes said Richards saw him on two breaks that night.

“She talked about the schedule, but she never mentioned Miss Scott,” Barnes said.

Barnes said he had no knowledge of complaints that Scott was keeping the other inmates awake with her moaning, as Richards had testified, nor was he aware that she had dry heaves throughout the night.

Richards testified that a medical Code Yellow is used in the prison for medical emergencies, but is not used during the night because there is no medical staff on duty. Richards said that in the morning, when a nurse returned to the prison, she called directly to the medical office for someone to see Scott, but did not call for a Code Yellow.

“They only use that call if someone is having a seizure or is unresponsive,” Richards testified. “I didn’t think it was a deadly emergency when she was talking to me.”

An hour later, around 7 a.m., when no one from the medical office had arrived, Richards said she called again. At that point Scott was starting to turn blue around her mouth and fingers.

Nurse Jozie Squibb had come on duty at 6 a.m. and testified that her first responsibility is for the diabetes patients, testing their blood and administering insulin so they can be fed. As she finished with the diabetes patients she received a second call saying Scott was turning blue and she immediately responded to her cell. Squibb said she couldn’t get a reading on the pulse oximeter in the cell, so she took Scott to the medical office, walking down three flights of steps to get there.

A corrections officer testified that Scott sat in a chair by his desk in the control area for about a minute and a half to catch her breath before continuing down the final flight of stairs and hallway to the medical office. Upon her arrival there Squibb said Scott had a pulse oxygen level of 72, an indication of respiratory distress. She administered oxygen.

“She couldn’t hold her head up,” Squibb testified.

An ambulance was already on the way to the prison when Scott lost consciousness and CPR was begun by prison personnel. Scott was transported to Uniontown Hospital, where resuscitation efforts failed and she was pronounced dead.

A statement from Scott’s cellmate was read into the record by Uniontown Police captain and prison liaison David Rutter. It was noted that Scott and her cellmate, Amanda Edgar, did not know one another before Scott was placed in Edgar’s cell the night of Sept. 5.

“Scott appeared either ill or in severe drug withdrawal,” Edgar said in her statement.

The statement was given to a state police investigator Sept. 30 while she was incarcerated at SCI-Muncy.

Edgar stated that Scott was very thirsty and had complained about her hands hurting at midnight. Edgar noted that Richards had noticed track marks on Scott’s arms and Scott admitted to crushing the intermediate released oxycontin pills she was prescribed and injecting them intravenously twice a day, but said she had run out two days earlier.

“From the way Jeanna was shaking, it had to be something like heroin, because I know what it was like when I went through it,” Edgar said.

The officer noted that Edgar denied giving Scott any pills the night before her death.

“I know she was withdrawing from something. She was sweating profusely, rocking and moaning,” Edgar stated.

Edgar said she alerted Richards to Scott turning blue around 6:30, at which time she said Richards called supervisors twice.

After hearing two full days of testimony the coroner’s jury was deliberating late Thursday night regarding what, if any, recommendations should be made in the case.