The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office is deliberately refusing to close the criminal investigation into the death of a woman who died in the jail in order to avoid releasing her autopsy report, the woman’s family says.
“It just seems like they’re purposely stalling because they have things to hide,” said Pamela Taylor, whose niece, Chasity Bonner, died in the Tarrant County jail on May 27.
“They don’t have any type of urgency or accountability, and it seems like they’ve been able to do this in the past,” she said. “Why would they be so comfortable giving the family the runaround, giving attorneys the runaround? Seems like this is business as normal.”
Elections and a two-year statute of limitations are behind the Sheriff’s Office’s reticence to release information in Bonner’s case, according to the family’s attorney Daryl Washington. Sheriff Bill Waybourn is up for reelection in November.
“Sheriff Waybourn is not going to give up any information that’s going to show him in a negative light before this election,” said Washington.
The ‘runaround’
The medical examiner released the results of her autopsy report earlier this month, concluding that she died a natural death caused by heart disease.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office appealed to the Texas Attorney General’s Office to withhold the release of Bonner’s autopsy report in requests filed by a family member, the Star-Telegram and three other media outlets.
The DA’s Office cited an ongoing criminal investigation into Bonner’s death by the Sheriff’s Office in its letter to the AG.
Communications with the governmental departments involved appear to show that it is in the Sheriff’s Office’s power to close Bonner’s case. But it is still considered an ongoing criminal investigation.
On Sept. 9, Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Robbie Hoy told the Star-Telegram in an email that Bonner’s case would be closed as “soon as the Medical Examiner’s Office sends us the official report.”
On Sept. 12, John Briggs, the chief forensic death investigator and interim spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office, told the Star-Telegram in an email that the Sheriff’s Office only has to request the autopsy report in order for the documents to be sent.
The Star-Telegram sent the Sheriff’s Office’s media team four emails asking if the department had requested the autopsy report before Public Information Director Laurie Passman responded. The Criminal Investigations Division requested it in the first week of September, she said, but did not provide documentation.
Passman advised following up with the medical examiner’s office about the sheriff’s department’s request. She said Washington has no grounds to accuse the office of dragging its feet on closing Bonner’s case.
Briggs, with the medical examiner’s office, said that all media requests for Bonner’s case would have to be routed through Tarrant County spokesperson Bill Hanna.
Hanna did not return a phone call seeking clarification of the situation.
The Star-Telegram submitted an open records request on Thursday for the Sheriff Office’s communications with the medical examiner for Bonner’s autopsy report.
Passman criticized the family’s attorney for his accusations against the Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s absurd and just another baseless attack on this office from an opportunist who profits off families dealing with loss,” she said.
Washington called the comment “ridiculous” and “insulting,” adding that it reveals the mindset of the Sheriff’s Office.
“How am I profiting from somebody’s loss when I file a civil rights damages lawsuit on behalf of the client?” he said. “I don’t contact the families. The families contact me.”
Washington has filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of the family of Anthony Johnson Jr., who was killed in the county jail in April, but he has yet to file one in Bonner’s case.
Taylor told the Star-Telegram that her family has yet to pay Washington for any legal services and said they need to retain his services “if there wasn’t a loss in the first place.”
“I feel like they’re creating problems where we have to get legal representation, because just us as normal citizens, the family, we can’t get anything done,” she said.
Bonner’s mother, LaMonica Bratton, said she also suspects the Sheriff’s Office is trying to cover up the details of her daughter’s death.
“I feel like they’re hiding something, or they’re trying to put something together,” she said. “I mean, why else am I getting all of this runaround?”
Trouble getting Bonner’s medical records
The Star-Telegram accompanied Bratton last week as she requested Bonner’s medical records at John Peter Smith Hospital, where she was taken on the day she died. JPS personnel provide medical services in all Tarrant County jails.
As with previous attempts, she was unable to get the records. She was told that Bonner’s daughter will have to request them.
Bonner’s daughter, Labeverly Bonner, lives in Denton, and has been unable to come to Fort Worth to request the records due to a pregnancy. Taylor said she plans to come down soon to request them.
Daphne Walker, chief legal officer for JPS Hospital, told the Star-Telegram that the hospital is following HIPAA regulations and that nothing “nefarious” is going on with Bonner’s records.
Sitting in the hospital waiting room after requesting the records, Bratton said she was “furious,” but that she would not be deterred in her attempts to get clarity on what happened to her daughter.
The only communication she has received from the Sheriff’s Office since May 27 is the phone call informing her of Bonner’s death.
“There is no way that I should have to be going through all of this,” she said. “Where are we going with all of this? That’s my question. Do they think this is going to make me give up? No, it’s going to make me try harder.”
Bratton and others watching the case had expected to see a cause of death related to fentanyl or other opioid drugs, because the press release issued by the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office on the day Bonner died said JPS staff administered Narcan twice when attempting to save her life.
Narcan is a brand name of naloxone, a drug used to counteract opioid overdoses.
Drugs “run rampant” in the Tarrant County jail , according to a lawsuit filed in July by the mother of Trelynn Wormley, who died there in 2022. Wormley died of a fentanyl overdose, the medical examiner concluded.
However, JPS staff did not administer naloxone in any jails on the day that Bonner died, according to hospital records received through an open records request.
A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said it is not a discrepancy that JPS said it did not administer the drug despite the account in the press release.
“JPS is not the only team involved when medical emergencies occur and a list from them of Narcan use would not be a complete picture of any particular case, necessarily,” spokesperson Hoy said in an emailed statement when asked about the discrepancy in August. He was unable to comment on the case at the time because it was an ongoing investigation.
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