Georgia Kay Baldwin

Georgia Kay Baldwin, 52, was a mother in Texas. She was arrested in April 2021 after allegedly leaving threatening voicemail messages for a law enforcement officer and booked into a jail in Tarrant County. In May, she was found incompetent to stand trial and ordered to be incarcerated in the jail for a competency restoration program. She was discharged from the program in late July. According to a lawsuit filed by her family, she was required to be taken to a state hospital, but wasn’t. “Tarrant County chose to continue incarcerating Ms. Baldwin in a small cell, where she could not see through a window or view other human beings,” according to the lawsuit. While incarcerated, Ms. Baldwin frequently appeared disheveled, agitated and illogical, according to jail records. Despite suspecting that Ms. Baldwin had a mental illness, Tarrant County failed to transfer her to an outside mental health facility or have her medically evaluated or treated, according to the lawsuit. On September 14, she was found unresponsive in her cell. The autopsy report found that she had “severe hypernatremic dehydration,” or a high concentration of sodium in the blood. A Texas Ranger who investigated her death noted that Ms. Baldwin had a water fountain in her cell and that hypernatremia is typically associated with "impaired mental judgement.”

In June, Baldwin’s sons sued Tarrant County over their mother’s “tragic, completely unnecessary death.” Jail staff were negligent in caring for a woman whose severe mental illness was obvious from the voicemails alone, the lawsuit argues. Dean Malone is the attorney representing Baldwin’s sons.

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