BEND — Deschutes County Jail and probation staff received warnings that a Bend woman in their custody was suffering from opiate withdrawal and had a history of suicide attempts.

Deschutes County Jail staff kept Kendra Nicole Sawyer locked in an isolated cell for less than two days before leaving her unattended for 40 minutes, according to a federal lawsuit filed Friday. At that point, she tried to take her own life, hanging herself with a jail towel on Feb. 13, 2023.

Sawyer initially survived, but died six days later, on Feb. 19, 2023. She was 22.

“They completely ignored her,” Kent Sawyer, the woman’s 59-year-old father, said Tuesday, Feb. 13, one year after his daughter took her own life. He added: “It devastated me.”

The tragedy came just two years after another man, who struggled with addiction, hung himself in the jail with a towel. Attorneys for the Sawyer family say this shows county officials knew the risks of withdrawal and mental illness but failed to stop Sawyer’s suicide, according to the wrongful death lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Eugene, which alleges county staff were negligent.

The lawsuit names a variety of sheriff’s office and county officials, including Sheriff Shane Nelson and Capt. Michael Shults, who oversees the jail.

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Repeatedly, attorneys allege that Sawyer’s case was handled by county staff who had no training in mental health care, that she was not referred to mental health care, and that county officials did little to help because policy didn’t require it.

“The jail was on notice,” Joseph Sexton, Sawyer’s attorney, told The Bulletin Tuesday. “It wasn’t like Kendra hid this problem from the jail. It was obvious.”

In an email to The Bulletin, Deschutes County Legal Counsel David Doyle said the county “does not agree with allegations in the complaint and intends to vigorously defend the lawsuit.”

Doyle said the jail “has policies that address medical issues and mental illness.” The county “does not agree with the plaintiff attorney’s characterization of the policies as ‘threadbare,’” Doyle said.

Sawyer’s father remembers his daughter as “a social butterfly” with a passion for the outdoors. She graduated from Marshall High School, now called Bend Tech Academy. She loved to hike, ride horses and ski. But she struggled with her mental health in the wake of a friend’s suicide and, eventually, used drugs.

“She was delicate,” said Kent Sawyer. “And I think that’s why she felt that death was better than life.”

Theft charges led to probation, jail

Sawyer pleaded guilty to first-degree theft in December 2022 and was placed on probation. During the intake process, she filled out a form saying that her addiction caused a “loss of mental health,” she had experienced “anxiety, depression, and panic attacks,” and had previously attempted suicide “several times,” the lawsuit states.

On Jan. 27, Sawyer’s probation officer, Sarah Mosley, recommended that she be arrested after she failed to show up for a visit the day before and had not responded to attempts to contact her.

Sawyer responded on Feb. 3, apologizing and saying she would contact Mosley, the lawsuit states. On Feb. 11, 2023 Bend police responded to a report of a woman near a local Albertsons. They found Sawyer, arrested her on her outstanding warrant and booked her in the jail at 12:26 a.m. on Feb. 12.

At the time, Sawyer’s probation officer hadn’t told the jail about Sawyer’s history of suicide attempts and mental illness because county policy didn’t require it, the lawsuit alleges. When she was booked by a county official, sheriff’s deputy Gunnar Johnson did not conduct a suicide risk assessment because such a practice was not part of county policy.

Sawyer told booking officers that she was at risk of fentanyl withdrawal, and intake officials noted that she was taking medication due to a “family history of suicide attempts,” the lawsuit alleges.

While Sawyer went through withdrawal, jail staff kept her in a section of the jail with single-cell units. There, it’s not uncommon for inmates to be locked down and isolated for 23 hours at a time while staff monitor them, the lawsuit states.

That’s where they kept Sawyer.

At 9:15 a.m. on Feb. 13, her mother came to the jail with a bag of fentanyl pills, saying she found the pills in Sawyer’s bedroom. She warned a staffer that her daughter might go through withdrawals, the lawsuit states.

Throughout that day, Sawyer called her mother and father from jail, saying her confinement was making her “loony” and that she wasn’t getting proper medication. She called the cell a “coffin,” the lawsuit states.

Sawyer told a jail staffer that she was struggling with the confinement and her withdrawal, but she was not referred to mental health care, the lawsuit alleges.

That evening, Sawyer left her room and used a towel to dry off after a jail shower, “then was allowed to take the towel into her cell,” the lawsuit states. Forty minutes later, at 8:30 p.m., that same staffer, Jackson Rich, found Sawyer hanging from the towel.

“In other words, for 40 minutes, between the hours of 7:50 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., (Sawyer) was on her own — no safety checks, no visual observations, and no custodial care whatsoever,” the lawsuit states.

Deputies and medical staff tried to revive Sawyer and regained a pulse, the lawsuit states. They took her to St. Charles Bend. She died at 3:58 p.m. on Feb. 19.

Deschutes County jail policy

Deschutes County policy states that medically segregated inmates like Sawyer “shall be directly supervised by a deputy 24 hours a day” and that staff will make rounds “at least every 30 minutes.” Attorneys allege jail staff didn’t do this.

“More likely than not, had Deschutes County employed a 30-minute safety check policy for withdrawing inmates … Kendra would still be alive today,” the lawsuit states.

Need help?

Need help?

Need help?

Deschutes County 24-Hour Crisis Line: Crisis services is a 24-hour program that responds by phone or face-to-face.

541-322-7500 ext. #9

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: The Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States.

Call 9-8-8

Text 9-8-8

Visit 988lifeline.org to message.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: a national network of local crisis centers that provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in the United States.

1-800-273-TALK (8255); TEXT “273Talk” to 839863

For Veterans press #1

Ayuda en español llame (for Spanish language call) 1-888-628-9454, TEXT “MIL1” to 839863

For Hearing and speech impaired call 1-800-799-4TTY (4889)

Oregon YouthLine: YouthLine is a free, confidential teen-to-teen crisis and help line

877-968-8491 or text “teen2teen” to 83983

Sawyer’s family is seeking an undisclosed amount in financial and punitive damages from the county.

Sawyer’s lawsuit comes as the Deschutes County jail faces an influx in inmates struggling with addiction and mental illness. Suicide attempts there have more than doubled, from six in 2021 to 13 in 2023. Last year, there were more overdoses — nine — than the previous two years combined.

Sawyer’s is one of three federal lawsuits facing the jail. In 2019, the mother of a deceased jail inmate, Bryan Penner, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against county authorities, alleging they were deliberately indifferent before he hanged himself with a towel in the jail shower in March 2018.

In January 2022, Deschutes County jail staff broke a handcuffed inmate’s thumb, tore ligaments in his fingers and fractured his wrist while removing his ring at the jail. The inmate, Bryan Martin Beyer, 48, of Bend, filed a federal lawsuit Jan. 5, alleging the use of force constitutes cruel and unusual punishment

Editor’s Note: This article discusses topics some readers may find harmful, including suicide.