Teen among 8 Valley inmate suicides in 9 years

May 30--MUNCY -- Upon admission to state mental hospitals, patients who have tried to kill themselves within the past 90 days are watched by at least one and sometimes two staff members.

Despite Teasia Long's history of mental illness that included two suicide attempts, according to relatives, experts at the State Correctional Institution at Muncy evaluating the 18-year-old deemed she was not a risk to herself.

Long, a Port Trevorton woman who also had bipolar disorder, followed through in a suicide pact she made with another inmate and hanged herself Sunday, two months after she arrived at Muncy.

She will be buried today in Mount Pleasant Mills.

The other inmate did not commit suicide.

Long -- who was serving a 9- to 40-year sentence after pleading guilty but mentally ill to two counts of attempted homicide and arson in Snyder County for burning down the Port Trevorton home in which she lived with her aunt and uncle, Nancy and Gerald Bickhart, as they slept in a second-floor bedroom on Feb. 3, 2014 -- is the fifth Valley inmate to have committed suicide in lockup within two months of their arrival behind bars and the eighth overall since 2006.

Kait Gillis, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, which oversees the mental hospitals, said Friday that staff members receive up-to-date clinical information from the health-care provider or psychiatric hospitals or jails for each patient admitted.

"Based on this information, we would plan accordingly for the appropriate unit, services as well as a review of the current medications being administered in preparation for the admission," Gillis said. "If upon admission an individual presents self-injurious behavior, we would address this clinically but also utilize constant visual observation, one-to-one staffing, two-to-one staffing or other interventions as prescribed by one of our psychiatrist or physicians."

Long, who had been treated at several mental health facilities around Pennsylvania, according to her aunt, Nancy Bickhart. was not under suicide watch at Muncy.

Troy Edwards, a spokesman at Muncy, said Long was being held in a one-person cell in the diversionary treatment unit pending completion of her mental health evaluation by professionals that included a psychologist and a psychiatrist.

They would determine whether Long would be placed in a secure treatment facility or prison -- an evaluation that takes 90 to 120 days to complete.

Long was being evaluated by a team of mental health specialists who did not consider her at high risk and requiring constant, or one-on-one, monitoring or spot checks every 15 minutes, Edwards said.

Based on the results of the suicide screening and assessment for state mental hospitals, a plan is created to keep the patient safe, said Gillis, the Human Services spokeswoman.

"Depending on circumstances and degree of perceived risk, the individual can be placed on anything from 15-minute checks where staff checks on their status to one-to-one constant observation with a staff member always present," she said.

Checks are staggered and do no actually occur precisely every 15 minutes, Gillis said.

"In cases where it does and the person is intent on hurting themselves, they know they have 15 minutes from the last check to complete the act," she said. "The most important thing is keeping the individual safe while aggressively treating the underlying condition."

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.

The diversionary treatment unit where Long was being held was a new measure taken by the 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.

Long is one of eight Valley inmates who killed themselves while in lockup since 2006.

At the Snyder County Jail, Tyler Michael Sees, 19, of Mount Pleasant Mills, on Jan. 6 and Lamont Chyanne Blount, 22, of Philadelphia, on April 23, 2014, were found hanging from the jail shower.

Sees died the next day at Geisinger Medical Center. He was serving a three- to six-month sentence imposed in August for terroristic threats when he received another eight- to 17-month jail term for an unrelated theft conviction in November. He would have been eligible for parole in June.

Blount had been in the jail for about three months on federal drug charges and was facing a murder charge in connection with the October 2013 shooting death of a 37-year-old man in Philadelphia.

The hanging death of Jeremy W. Dock, 29, of Beaver Springs, in April 2007 at the Snyder jail led to a lengthy court battle waged by Dock's family contending foul play was involved. The suit was dismissed.

Dock was charged in October 2006 with conspiracy in connection with drug smuggling in the jail while he served time at the facility. He was moved from the Snyder County Jail to the Union County Jail in November 2006 and then back to Snyder County four days before his death.

In the Northumberland County Prison system, Andrew Beers, 27, of Paxinos, on Aug. 13, 2013, Cyrus Lewis, 34, of Shamokin, on June 15, and Brandon Menne, 21, of Shamokin, on Feb. 20, were found hanging in their cells over the last two years.

Lawsuits filed by relatives of Beers and Lewis are pending.

Beers was jailed on theft charges on July 23, 2013. Lewis was committed to the county prison June 10 relating to two different sets of charges, including attempting to steal a pickup truck.

Menne, who died a day later at Geisinger Medical Center, was taken to the state prison in Coal Township as a Northumberland County inmate the same day he hanged himself. He had been in custody since Feb. 11 when he was taken to the Snyder County Jail for failure to comply with bail requirements related to charges of theft by unlawful taking and receiving stolen property.

Also in 2013, Andrew Howard, 33, of the Philadelphia area, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Coal Township, was found dead on Aug. 23 by hanging. He was serving time on a parole violation stemming from a robbery charge.

Nine years ago, 19-year-old Ryan Francis, of Trevorton, hanged himself March 9, 2006, after his mother, half brother, girlfriend and two others were killed in an apartment fire in Trevorton. He was arrested on March 7 after he disrupted the funeral of his girlfriend and was placed in the Northumberland County Prison.

A lawsuit led to a $360,000 settlement between the county and Francis' grandmother.

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