Randy Heath

In November 2020, Randy Heath was booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, weighing about 200 lbs. He was bipolar and schizophrenic and was regularly prescribed medication for his mental illness. Heath's condition deteriorated over the course of his incarceration. A lawsuit filed by his family alleged that he was left unattended for hours at a time in his own urine and feces. “According to multiple witnesses, Mr. Heath was clearly being neglected and mistreated by Defendant and its prison employees and was allowed to endure a slow and painful death," the lawsuit alleged. Heath died in July 2021, eight months into his incarceration. According to an autopsy report, he had lost about 100 pounds and had no medications for treating his medical conditions present in his system. A medical examiner determined that he died from “food asphyxia.” The lawsuit alleges: “Clearly, Mr. Heath was suffering, starving, and being unattended to well before he allegedly died from food asphyxia.” "Randy’s situation is inexcusable," Daryl Washington, the family's attorney, told the Yale Investigative Reporting Lab. "He was in a skeleton state when they found him – there is no way he should have been in that condition."

Daryl Washington, mother's lawyer. "In a wrongful-death lawsuit filed in federal court this week against Miami-Dade County, Heath's mother, Angela Heath, claims guards at the county-run Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGK) allowed her son, who had bipolar and schizophrenia disorders, to languish in the jail's mental health unit before he was found unresponsive in his cell." Lawsuit accessible here.

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