SEBASTIAN COUNTY, Ark. — The family of Larry Eugene Price Jr., a man who died while incarcerated in the Sebastian County Jail, will receive a total of $6 million in the wrongful death lawsuit filed in January 2023.
Price, 51, died while in solitary confinement in the Sebastian County Detention Center in August 2021. He remained in custody on a terroristic threatening charge because he couldn't pay the $1,000 bail. His family believes Larry was suffering from a mental health episode when he was arrested in August 2020.
"Mr. Price spent the next year in jail, not convicted of any crime, just waiting for most of that year, despite his dire need of urgent psychiatric care," the lawsuit stated.
In the wrongful death suit, Price is described as a developmentally disabled Black man who was suffering from an acute mental health crisis when he was arrested by Fort Smith officers and charged with terroristic threatening. The Fort Smith Police Department said Price walked into the police department on Aug. 19, 2020, and was threatening officers.
"For most of that year, despite his dire need of urgent psychiatric care, Mr. Price languished alone in solitary confinement— in a state of active psychosis — neglected by jail medical and custody staff," the wrongful death complaint stated.
It was because of the psychosis that he didn't eat or drink, documents said.
"Let me be clear," Runion first told 5NEWS in January 2023. "The jail staff gave this inmate plenty of food and water every day."
The lawsuit said staff conducted more than 4,000 well-being checkups in the month leading up to Price's death. Each of the check-ups stated the same thing: "Inmate and Cell OK."
Although there was evidence of Turn Key Health workers in the jail monitoring his food and water intake for a few months between February and April 2021, "they quickly abandoned their minimal efforts," according to the lawsuit.
"Instead, they ignored his life-threatening condition altogether and simply watched from the sidelines as he steadily decompensated. In the last months of his pretrial confinement, Mr. Price was so visibly emaciated that he resembled a victim of famine."
On August 29, 2021, medical staff found Price unresponsive in a pool of standing water and urine.
Before he was booked into jail, Price was a 6'2" man weighing 185 pounds. Fort Smith EMS estimated his weight was 90 pounds when he died, but the autopsy recorded his weight at 121 pounds.
In photos taken on the day he died, Price's skeletal body is shown on a metal table. His skin is warped and pruney, reportedly from a pool of contaminated water on the concrete floor of his cell where first responders found him lying, according to the lawsuit.
"Nobody can look at the window of a cell and see a person who looks like that and not recognize an emergent problem," Balson said.
In January 2023, Price's family filed a federal lawsuit against the county, its medical provider Turn Key Health, and select jail employees after he died while in solitary confinement.
Arkansas State Police and the Sebastian County prosecutor looked into Price's death. While his autopsy listed his cause of death as malnutrition and dehydration, both found no one in the case acted criminally.
Price reportedly suffered from paranoid schizophrenia disorder, had an IQ of 55, and was often homeless and living in poverty.
The lawsuit argued that nurses employed by Turn Key who worked in the jail neglected Price. The doctor stopped prescribing medications to address the serious mental health episodes three months after he was placed in custody. In January 2021, Price reportedly submitted a request to see medical staff, stating "I am sick and have lost a lot of weight[.] I need to see a doctor."
A note left by nursing staff said he didn't receive healthcare because he was "non-compliant."
Despite several instances of acute mental health episodes, Turn Key staff never attempted to help Price even as the situation continued to worsen. The lawsuit said it's within Turn Key's scope to coordinate Price's transfer to an appropriate facility when he showed deteriorating psychosis symptoms.
In documents filed in Sebastian County Circuit Couty on Sept. 11, 2024, both Sebastian County and Turn Key Health agreed to pay the family of Larry Price $3 million each, totaling a $6 million settlement.
When we reached out to Sheriff Runion for comment, the Sebastian County Sheriff's Office spokesperson said Runion can't comment on the case as he hasn't been advised the settlement has been officially approved by the court.
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