THE LAST DAYS OF JULIE TOWN

GEORGETOWN -- The weekend before she hanged herself in a cell at the
Williamson County Jail, Julie Town wrote five letters to her
15-year-old son and a new boyfriend, all full of doubts and vows of
love. None were mailed.

Town, a 35-year-old mother of two jailed in December on a
heroin-related charge, struck some bright notes. Her rambling script
paused to note the comfort of folding a mattress corner into a pillow.
``I'm also an optimist (look at the good side),'' she signed one letter.

But as three days passed without her anti-depressant medication and
other prescription drugs, Town's mood darkened.

``Now I know what happens when I don't get my meds,'' she wrote.
``I've never gone this long."

The next day, inmates returning from lunch found Town's body hanging
from a brass handle in her cell, suspended by a torn blanket. The
cellblock's electronic call boxes were out, so inmates screamed until
guards arrived. Town was cut down, laid on the cement floor and
pronounced dead sometime after 2 p.m. Monday, Dec. 13.

Records from the investigation into Town's death show lapses and
missed opportunities by jail staff members responsible for protecting
her life.

A relative's warning that Town was manic-depressive and possibly
suicidal went unheeded. Town's written request for her prescription
medicine, dated two days before her death, got no response. And jail
records show that on the day she killed herself, the facility was
understaffed and guards did not make required rounds, leaving Town
unobserved. Both are violations of Texas jail standards that had
occurred there before.

The head of the jail, Assistant Chief Deputy James Harrell,
acknowledged that ``obviously something failed.''

Still, Harrell said, there was little his staff could do. When she was
admitted, Town had lied about her depression and never mentioned past
suicide attempts. Guards are not mind-readers, he said.

``She was determined to kill herself. When a person is convinced they
want to die, they're going to die,'' Harrell said.

Stephen Town, Julie Town's ex-husband and a corrections officer for
the Travis County sheriff's office, said the jail could have done more
to protect her. He and Catherine Kelly, Town's mother, have notified
Williamson County that they intend to file a wrongful-death lawsuit on
behalf of Town's children.

``They may not have killed her, but they allowed her to die,'' said
Stephen Town, 40. ``Why didn't they just give her the noose?"

Julie and Stephen Town had moved across the country with their two
children for years before settling on Austin in 1996, picking the city
partly by throwing darts at a map. When they divorced in 1998, Julie
raised the children and worked as an accounting clerk at Buell Supply
Co. in Austin. Kelly, 57, describes her daughter as a chipper woman
who enjoyed talking and joking around. But she also had troubles.
Depression runs on both sides of the family, and Julie had ``horrible
demons,'' Kelly said.

By the time she died, she had been taking anti-depressants for five
years, including four years on Zoloft. Without the medication, Julie
Town was unstable, Stephen Town said.

``We always knew when she wasn't taking it. She would start thinking
about killing herself,'' he said.

The week before her arrest, Julie complained of feeling down, which
she blamed on the holiday season. Her doctor increased her Zoloft dosage.

Kelly, who lived with her daughter, told investigators that Town had
changed recently and was spending more time with a new boyfriend. She
was drinking, listening to loud music and ignoring her family, a
Department of Public Safety report said.

On the morning of Dec. 9, Kelly called 911 after finding the boyfriend
unconscious and her daughter slow to respond. Both admitted to using
heroin, and the drug -- along with marijuana, pipes and syringes --
was found in the house, police records say.

At Seton Northwest Hospital, Town was treated for an accidental heroin
overdose and bronchitis, given a prescription for penicillin and,
along with her boyfriend, arrested upon her release just after
midnight Friday, Dec. 10.

The arresting deputy, Scott Blanchett, later told investigators that
Town and her boyfriend seemed happy. But as they reached their
destination, Town grew concerned and asked about her prescription
drugs. The deputy assured her that the medicine could be brought to
the Georgetown jail.

Warning signs

While she was booked into the jail, Town received a standard medical
and suicide screening. On two intake forms, both signed by Town, she
reported no mental illness, no suicide attempts and no suicidal thoughts.

Noting nothing unusual about Town, staff members put her with the
general jail population.

Harrell said Town's answers hurt the jail's chances to save her, and
relatives are not sure why Town responded as she did. Kelly said her
daughter was private and may have been embarrassed. Stephen Town
guessed his ex-wife feared more restrictive confinement.

Even so, they say, other warning signs emerged. Stephen Town called
the jail Friday morning to warn the medical staff that his ex-wife was
manic-depressive and had been suicidal in the past. Town said a
medical clerk assured him that Julie would be put on a suicide watch,
which requires more frequent observation by guards.

But the message apparently never reached a nurse or doctor. In a memo
dated two days after Town's suicide, the medical clerk said the nurse
and other staff members were too busy, so the note was attached to
Town's medical folder -- where it stayed until after her death.

On Saturday, Kelly said, she called the jail staff about bringing her
daughter's pills but was told she had to wait until visiting hours
Wednesday. Harrell said he did not know whether the jail staff
received such a call.

Also Saturday, Town filled out a medical request asking for Zoloft and
her other prescriptions, including hormone and cholesterol pills and
asthma medication. ``My mother has it all,'' she wrote, giving Kelly's
phone number.

After submitting her request, Town continued to press for her
medication, asking guards and passing medical officers for her pills,
growing frantic and even crying, said Jami Chesser, who was being held
in a nearby cell.

``She just kept saying she needed it,'' Chesser said. ``They kept
blowing her off."

On Monday, Dec. 13, as Town prepared to hang herself, she worked
unobserved by guards. In violation of Texas jail standards, which
require hourly checks on inmates, no one recorded looking in on Town's
cellblock for more than five hours before her death.

The floor was understaffed that afternoon, with only one guard free to
check on Town and 95 other inmates, according to jail records. State
standards require at least one guard per 48 inmates.

The two violations have been recurring problems at the Williamson
County Jail, which since 1990 has failed seven of 13 inspections.
Failed inspections cause the jail to lose certification by the state
and, if not corrected, can lead to a court order to remedy the problem
or, ultimately, closure by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

In 1995 and 1997, the jail was cited for not making regular checks on
inmates or more frequent suicide rounds. And in 1994, 1995 and 2000,
the jail was found to violate minimum staffing levels. Other
inspections cited the jail for overcrowding, not providing inmates
with enough daily exercise and problems with kitchen equipment, among
other citations.

The latest inspection came three weeks after Town's suicide, when
understaffing again cost the jail its certification. Since then,
county and jail commission officials have been disputing how many more
officers are needed at the jail.

Williamson County Sheriff John Maspero, who took over in August, said
last week that the shortfall has been resolved by shifting more
officers to the jail. The facility is ready for a new inspection, he
said.

In Texas, 13 percent of county jails are not certified. Travis
County's jail system, with three units, has failed eight annual state
inspections since 1990, most recently in April. The violations range
from understaffing and overcrowding to problems with an unrepaired
kitchen floor. The Hays County Jail failed one inspection during the
same period, in 1992.

Williamson County, always catching up with a growing prison
population, eventually regained certification, said Jack Crump, who
retired Friday as the jail commission's executive director.

Still, Crump said, the jail is found ``noncompliant off and on, off
and on, off and on. That does not speak well."

Skipping suicide checks

In March, a former Williamson County Jail guard was indicted on
charges that he falsely reported making rounds Dec. 19 -- less than a
week after Town's suicide.

The guard, Michael Bove, said in a March interview that he and fellow
guards were trained to make false entries if they fell behind on
checks. Bove, who is still awaiting trial, was not on duty at the time
of Town's death.

A month after Town died, Harrell signed off on a memo advising shift
lieutenants that checks for inmates on suicide watch were not being
documented, posing a serious liability to the jail.

Despite the memo, Harrell learned during a spring jail tour with a
reporter that guards had skipped some suicide checks. ``This is a
major embarrassment,'' he told a lieutenant on duty.

Later, Harrell said the checks serve mainly to protect the jail from
liability and rejected the argument that Town would be alive if guards
had watched her. But Stephen Town's undelivered message about his
ex-wife's condition prompted Harrell to require that similar messages
be given directly to medical personnel. Maspero said he is trying to
ensure that guards do their regular checks and supervisors enforce the
one-guard-per-48-inmates rule. The sheriff said he did not know if
problems existed in these areas before, although he did feel
uncomfortable with the jail's documentation system.

Maspero said he was not aware of the details surrounding Town's death
and could not talk about the case because of the threat of a lawsuit.
But he did say that an inmate's request for anti-depressant medication
is an outcry that requires immediate attention. If neither a doctor
nor a mental health worker is available, one should be called, he said.

The last letters

In her letters, Town daydreamed about the future. She mentioned plans
to sleep and diet while imprisoned. Again and again, she wrote that
she needed her medication.

The day before she died, Town tried cutting her wrist with a
filed-down toothbrush. The effort, she noted ruefully in a letter,
caused only minor welts.

That Sunday night, Town, who had been fighting with her mother during
collect calls home, had phoned Kelly for help getting her pills. But
Kelly refused the call, saying she didn't want Town's 6-year-old son
to hear their conversation.

Monday, as her cellblock went down the hall for lunch, Town stayed
behind. About 1:30 p.m., a guard delivered mail to the next cell but
told investigators she didn't see Town. About the same time, Kelly
called the jail, telling a guard ``she was worried sick'' about her
daughter. Within a half-hour, Julie was found hanged.

``I feel that all is hopeless -- even if I get out tomorrow,'' Town
wrote Sunday to her son. She apologized for her mistakes and told him
to think out all options before acting.

``Now I would cherish a pillow,'' she concluded, adding that she
wanted to give him and his brother ``a big, huge hug that lasts forever."