Nevada Will Pay $1.35 Million to the Family of a Prisoner Whose Suicide Spurred a Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Nevada will pay $1.35 million to the estate of a former prisoner whose 2018 suicide while incarcerated led to allegations of negligence and a wrongful death lawsuit.

Melody Morgan died by suicide at the age of 25 while incarcerated at the state-run Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas. She had suffered from seizures, migraines, bipolar disorder, multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia, and had three psychiatric hospitalizations, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2021 that described her as a creative person who was especially close with her mother and sister.

Days before Morgan’s suicide, she walked off the premises of Jean Conservation Camp — another state-run correctional facility for minimum custody prisoners — and Morgan’s mother warned a correctional officer that she should be placed on suicide watch. The lawsuit alleged that when Morgan was found and transferred to Florence McClure, correctional officers failed to adequately communicate the need to place Morgan on suicide watch, and nursing staff did not perform an intake screening.

Read the source article at The Nevada Independent