Trelynn Wormley had been in the Tarrant County Jail for six months when he died of a fentanyl overdose, county records show.
It was bad enough for him to die from drugs he seems to have obtained in jail, his mother, Cassandra Johnson, told the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) Thursday.
She found out later his death never got a third-party investigation – an apparent violation of state law.
“I need answers. I need accountability. I need transparency,” Johnson said.
Johnson and Tarrant County activists traveled to the state capitol in Austin to ask the TCJS – the state’s jail watchdog – why this was allowed to happen.
Under the Sandra Bland Act, an outside law enforcement agency has to come in and perform its own investigation of every death in jail custody. Tarrant County has not been doing that, according to the TCJS.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, listed the Fort Worth Police Department as its third-party investigating agency on more than 20 deaths over a three-year period. But the FWPD does not investigate those deaths, a police spokesperson told KERA and the Fort Worth Report in October.
Instead, police review the sheriff’s own internal investigations.
This violation was first reported by Bolts magazine. The sheriff’s office confirmed FWPD only conducts reviews but insists that practice does not violate state law.
Without a third-party investigation of each death, there can’t be accountability if something went wrong, Tarrant County resident and jail activist Nan Terry told the commission.
“The sheriff is investigating his own custody deaths – kind of like the fox guarding the henhouse,” Terry said.
The sheriff’s office can do its own investigations, but a third-party investigation is still required, TCJS Executive Director Brandon Wood said last month.
According to Wood, his agency has informed the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office that it needs to get third-party investigations. If it doesn’t, the jail could be declared noncompliant with state standards.
TCJS missed the violations until a reporter called about them, Wood said. He blamed a backlog of in-custody death documentation and staff turnover for the oversight.
“It was one of those where we’ve been playing catch-up for, unfortunately, way too long in that area,” he said.
Johnson criticized the TCJS in person Thursday.
“The commissioner is supposed to be in charge of helping the safety and the well-being of incarcerated people in county jails,” Johnson said. “But it seems like your priority is to protect the sheriff and limit liability in the jail. Please show me I’m wrong. Please, get involved.”
Goldie VanZandt is an advocate with the Texas Jail Project, a nonprofit that pushes for better treatment of people in Texas’ county jails. She read a statement on behalf of the organization’s cofounder, Krish Gundu, that asked what the TCJS will do about the problem.
“The next step you take will tell the community whether your mission is to ensure the safety of incarcerated people and staff, or to protect a sheriff who thinks he’s above the law,” VanZandt read.
KERA reached out to Wood Thursday for response to the criticism. In an email, he did not address the public’s concerns but did say again TCJS has been in contact with the sheriff’s office.
“We are awaiting their response,” he wrote.
KERA has also reached out to the sheriff’s office and will update this story with any comment.
The Fort Worth Report and KERA submitted a records request for all of the death reviews conducted by the Fort Worth Police Department. But the TCJS — alongside Tarrant County — objected to the release of some of the records.
TCJS officials are asking the attorney general to allow them to withhold records from 10 deaths in custody, which they say are related to “an incomplete death-in-custody investigation by The Commission on Jail Standards.”
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office and Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office also objected to the release of those records, for different reasons. County officials said the information at hand is related to “detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime,” and that release of the information would interfere with active investigations or prosecutions.
The review of Chasity Bonner’s death is among those the county is seeking to withhold. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Bonner’s cause of death was atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, or hardened arteries. The county has refused to give Bonner’s family the full autopsy report, citing an ongoing investigation into her death.
Other records the county wants to keep confidential are related to deaths in the jail from as far back as 2022.
TCJS staff said the remaining in-custody death review records it is willing to release encompass 2,061 pages, and will cost $772.88.
On top of speaking at the TCJS and Tarrant County Commissioners Court meetings, Johnson is also suing over her son’s death in federal court. The lawsuit alleges Tarrant County has a practice of “allowing drugs to run rampant in its correctional facilities.”
Tarrant County has spent about $3.5 million in recent years to end lawsuits over deaths and allegations of abuse and neglect in the jail.
More than 65 people have died in county custody since 2017. That includes Anthony Johnson Jr., who died of asphyxiation in April after jailers pepper sprayed him, and one knelt on his back. Two now-former jailers have been indicted for murder.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
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