Juan Ortega and Sofia Santana
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — On a Thursday night at Broward’s Main Jail, a detention deputy was checking on inmates, when he looked inside Jail Cell 8 and saw something was terribly wrong with inmate Jeffrey Willis.
Willis was lying on his back on the floor, his head near the bed, his feet facing the cell door.
The detention deputy entered the cell and asked, “Are you all right?” He checked Willis’ neck and wrist.
No pulse.
A Broward Sheriff’s Office report about the detention deputy finding Willis was released Thursday, revealing details of how Willis was found on July 23, then rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. All names on the report were blacked out.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating Willis’ death as a homicide -- the first Broward jail death ruled a homicide in 10 years -- but is not saying how Willis was killed or whether there is a suspect.
The detention deputy found Willis unresponsive at 6:23 p.m. Two minutes later, after he determined that Willis had no pulse, an emergency call was made.
At 6:28 p.m., one or more other officials arrived, conducted CPR and used a defibrillator on Willis, the report said.
At 6:33 p.m., officials in the jail’s Master Control section were instructed to call 911.
Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue arrived at 6:40 p.m. and took Willis to Broward General Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 7:06 p.m.
The jail report and jail booking records do not mention, as officials would later determine, that Willis died of massive internal bleeding. The report also doesn’t state any injuries Willis may have had.
Citing the open investigation, sheriff’s officials won’t say when or where they suspect Willis may have been injured.
Earlier this year, before Willis arrived in Broward, he battled illness in other parts of Florida, his family said.
Willis was a patient at Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach and Port St. Lucie Hospital, said his younger sister, Jesi Willis Wilkins, 39, of Chester, Vt.
When Willis was released from those facilities, his sister arranged for him to move to a halfway house in Broward County, where she expected him to keep recovering, she said.
But he left the facility, planning to return to Daytona Beach, where his mother lived at the time, his sister said.
Jeffrey Willis never made the trip.
On July 22, a Fort Lauderdale police officer arrested Willis on charges of trespassing and resisting without violence, an arrest report shows. The arrest occurred at a vacant lot in the 1300 block of Sistrunk Boulevard, home to a tiny, but bustling, convenience store and a bail bondsman’s office.
Several people who live in the area said Thursday that they couldn’t recall seeing Willis in the neighborhood. The residents said that Willis, being white, would have stood out in the predominantly-black neighborhood.
Fort Lauderdale police said Thursday they are not investigating the Willis case. The Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t say whether they have contacted Fort Lauderdale police about the case.
Three months after Willis’ death, his uncle, John Snow, 57, of Vermont, questions if Broward jail officials did all they could to ensure Willis’ well-being, including medically inspecting him when he was jailed.
“We are left with questions as to whether that care, had it been provided, would have made a difference,” Snow said.
Copyright 2009 South Florida Sun-Sentinel