BUTTE — A coroner’s jury has determined that a western Montana jail was not negligent when an inmate hanged himself.
The Montana Standard reports jurors handed down their ruling Thursday in the Jan. 8 death of 24-year-old Zachary Williams at the Anaconda-Deer Lodge jail. Williams was facing a trial on six counts of felony child abuse.
A detention officer found him kneeling in his cell with a bed sheet wound into a rope and tied around his neck. The other end of the sheet was tied to a 3-foot-high (1-meter-high) handicap railing.
It’s standard procedure to convene a coroner’s jury when an inmate dies in custody.