A 57-year-old woman died in Tarrant County Jail custody on Saturday, according to a press release from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office.
The statement did not name the woman, but an in-custody death report submitted to the Texas Attorney General’s Office identified her as Lizza Elizabeth Gadlin. Gadlin was receiving care from John Peter Smith Hospital medical staff while in jail, and she died in the hospital, according to the press release.
Gadlin was arrested by DFW Airport police for theft of property valued between $100 and $750, for allegedly stealing a suitcase, county criminal records show. That’s a misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail, and/or a $2,000 fine, according to the Texas Penal Code.
She was booked into the jail on Apr. 15, and her bond — the amount she'd have to pay to leave jail — was set at $300. Her address is listed as “homeless.”
Gadlin is the third person to die in Tarrant County jail custody this year. Charles Stephen Johnson died Feb. 8 after a suicide attempt, according to the sheriff’s office. His cause of death is still pending an autopsy, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s case records show.
Tarrant County failed to report Johnson’s death to the state within the legally mandated 30-day time limit. The sheriff’s office cited a clerical error.
Kimberly Phillips died in custody on Feb. 18. Her cause of death is also pending.
Gadlin’s death is at least the 71st since Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office in 2017. That number includes one Tarrant County prisoner housed at a private prison in West Texas. Tarrant County previously paid $40 million to use the prison as overflow space, but the county ended its contract early after KERA News reported on safety violations there. The prison later shut down.
That number does not include the death of Zenorah, a baby who died 10 days after her mother, Chasity Congious, gave birth alone in her cell in 2020. Congious received a $1.2 million settlement in a lawsuit, the biggest settlement in Tarrant County history.
The county has paid more than $4.3 million in lawsuit payouts since 2022, over deaths in custody and allegations of abuse and neglect.
Two now-former jailers were indicted for murder last year in the death of Anthony Johnson Jr. Monday marks one year since he died, and no trial date has been set.
The Parker County Sheriff’s Office has been assigned to conduct an independent investigation of Gadlin’s death, according to the in-custody death report submitted to the attorney general.
The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office previously failed to get the required independent investigations into more than 25 deaths.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org.
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