Family members of woman found dead in Alabama jail speak out

Earlier this month, Leanna Washington, 36, of LaGrange, Georgia was found dead in the James Morgan County Detention Facility in LaFayette, Alabama. At that time, Washington had only been in jail for a matter of days after being detained on drug charges on Dec. 28, 2024.

Following Washington’s death, Chambers County Sheriff Jeff Nelson requested that the State Bureau of Investigation conduct an independent investigation into the matter. The SBI subsequently ruled Washington’s death as a suicide by hanging.

However, Washington’s family is challenging the Bureau’s findings, telling APR that the SBI has refused to share further details on the circumstances surrounding Washington’s death and citing other factors that, in their eyes, cast doubt on the Bureau’s claims.

The State Bureau of Investigation did not respond to APR’s requests for comment on the investigation into Leanna Washington’s death. APR also contacted the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Department of Corrections, but both institutions referred all questions regarding the matter to the SBI.

APR spoke with Leonora Harkless, Washington’s mother, who denied that her daughter would commit suicide. “She wouldn’t do this,” Harkless said, adding that her daughter was to be bonded out on the Monday following her death.

However, Harkless also said that the jail had been made aware that Washington did, in fact, have a history of depression. Harkless questioned why her daughter would not have been monitored more closely to prevent any harm she might cause herself if officials were aware of her mental health history.

Harkless also accused the SBI of refusing to provide the family with any additional details from their investigation.

“They will not show us papers, [a] file, pictures, nothing,” Harkless wrote in an email. Harkless also told APR that she plans on filing a wrongful death suit in relation to the SBI’s apparent lack of transparency.

Dalton Arrington, Washington’s widower, expressed similar frustration with the Bureau’s lack of communication. “The investigator for SBI told me Sunday that there isn’t anything to tell me and there won’t be any news from it,” Arrington said. 

Arrington also claimed that Washington had been experiencing chest pains while in custody and that she had been denied medical treatment. Arrington said that he spoke with a detention officer while Washington was still alive, who told him that they were keeping Washington in a holding cell so she could “dry out” — apparently experiencing withdrawal symptoms from drug use.

“Point blank period she [asked] for help [and] they ignored her because she was an addict, and I’m willing to bet anything the reason her chest was hurting is what [caused her death],” Arrington told APR.

“My wife has already been released and cremated and they still won’t give me answers. I deserve to know what really happened to my wife. There was no investigation done and no answers given,” Arrington added.

Misreporting the death of an individual in state custody would not be without precedent in Alabama. According to Alabama Appleseed, a non-profit focused on criminal justice issues in the state, deaths that occur due to violent conditions in state prisons are often misclassified as being due to “natural causes” or “accidents.” The non-profit also echoes Harkless and Arrington’s complaints about a lack of transparency, claiming that ADOC provides grieving loved ones with little communication and can take weeks or months to complete investigations into in-custody deaths.