By Marcia Moore
The Daily Item
MUNCY — An 18-year-old Port Trevorton woman with a history of mental illness killed herself while under the care of mental health professionals at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy who deemed she was not a risk to herself.
The death of Teasia M. Long has Robert Meek, a Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania attorney, raising alarm bells with the state Department of Corrections.
“This raises lots of concerns. That they didn’t see any signs or take any precautions, especially with someone so young and with a troubled history,” Meek said Tuesday. “Why wasn’t she under suicide watch?”
It’s particularly troubling for Meeks because the diversionary treatment unit where Long was being held was a new measure taken by state Department of Corrections in January to improve its treatment of seriously mentally ill inmates.
It was part of the DOC’s agreement to settle a federal lawsuit filed by the network over its treatment of mentally ill inmates, which includes improved mental health screening of state inmates and training for all prison employees.
Tuesday was also the first day on the job for Lynn Patrone, head of DOC’s newly created Office of Mental Health Advocate to ensure inmates are getting the proper treatment.
Meeks said the state has time to implement the changes in the settlement before it would be considered out of compliance, but finds it disconcerting that an inmate with a known history of mental instability and suicidal tendencies could end up dead in a state prison while under professional care.
“We will see what (DOC) has to say,” he said.
Troubled past
Long was found unresponsive in her cell hanging from a bed sheet at 1:12 a.m. Sunday. Officers performed emergency first aid until paramedics arrived, but she was pronounced dead at 1:40 a.m. at Muncy Valley Hospital.
Just two months ago she was sent to the prison after receiving a 9- to 40-year sentence for pleading guilty but mentally ill to two counts of attempted homicide and arson in Snyder County Court for burning down the Port Trevorton home she lived in with her aunt and uncle, Nancy and Gerald Bickhart, as they slept in a second floor bedroom on Feb. 3, 2014.
The couple, who raised Long since infancy, escaped with injuries.
Nancy Bickhart’s support for the young woman she calls her daughter never wavered. She attributed Long’s criminal actions to the mental illness she struggled with since the age of about 7.
Long had bipolar disorder, was treated at several facilities around the state and tried to kill herself on two prior occasions, Bickhart said.
She hoped the teen, who turned 18 on April 22, would receive treatment in a state mental hospital rather than be housed in prison and can’t understand why she wasn’t under closer watch.
Evaluation under way
Troy Edwards, a spokesman at Muncy prison, said Long was being held in a one-person cell in the diversionary treatment unit pending completion of a mental health evaluation by professionals, including a psychologist and psychiatrist, to determine whether she would be placed in a secure treatment facility or prison.
Edwards said the evaluation takes between 90 and 120 days to complete.
Long was being seen by a team of mental health specialists who did not consider her at high risk requiring constant, or one-on-one, monitoring or even spot checks every 15 minutes, he said.
“There was no indication she was going to harm herself,” Edwards said.
Bickhart doesn’t understand how prison officials would not view her as being at risk in light of her history.
“I can’t believe it,” she said.
Won’t prompt change
Edwards could not say how much time had passed after prison officials had last checked on Long and when she was found unresponsive in her cell or whether her full medical history had been reviewed by staff.
Those and other factors will be part of the investigation into Long’s death by state police at Montoursville, he said.
Lycoming County Coroner Charles Kiessling Jr. did not respond Tuesday to calls for comment about Long’s official cause of death.
Snyder County District Attorney Michael Piecuch, who negotiated the guilty but mentally ill plea with Long’s defense attorney, Patrick Johnson, as a way of getting medical help for the “troubled young woman,” spoke briefly with DOC Secretary John Wetzel about her death on Tuesday.
“I will be getting answers for myself, and more importantly, for the family,” he said.
DOC officials will also be taking a close look at what happened, Edwards said.
“Certainly there is something to learn, but (Long’s death) probably won’t prompt sweeping changes,” he said.