A 23-year-old Fairfield man hanged himself to death early Saturday morning at the new Blaine County Detention Center in Hailey.
Cody John Finch, a Camas County inmate awaiting transport to state prison for a burglary conviction, had been segregated from other inmates for "behavioral purposes" and hanged himself with a bed sheet in a video surveillance "blind spot," according to information released Monday by the Blaine County Sheriff's Office.
Detention officers discovered his body at 1:31 a.m. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead shortly after 2 a.m.
"There were no signs leading up to this that he was suicidal," jail administrator Lt. Jay Davis said Monday.
Davis, who also serves as Sheriff Walt Femling's public information officer, announced Finch's death at a weekly Monday morning briefing for news media representatives.
Femling declined to comment Tuesday except to say, "You have the press release and Jay's handling it."
Davis said Monday that Finch's death is still being investigated and that an internal investigation has been started into jail operations.
"We want to make sure that our sympathies go out to the family and we're sorry that they have to go through this emotional stress," Davis said.
Finch was sentenced Sept. 25 to six years in prison, three determinate and three indeterminate, by 5th District Court Judge Robert J. Elgee, who serves as district court judge for both Blaine and Camas counties.
Finch was originally given a withheld judgment and placed on four years probation after being convicted of burglary in Camas County in 2006. However, since then he was in court several times on allegations of probation violation.
He was charged with two counts of misdemeanor battery in Camas County in 2007 and with resisting or obstructing officers in Camas County in 2008. He was charged with malicious injury to property in Blaine County in 2008 and with DUI in Blaine County in May 2009.
Finch's withheld judgment, under which the burglary conviction could be removed from his record with successful completion of probation, was revoked in January 2008.
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Autopsy performed
Blaine County Coroner Russell Mikel said he was notified of Finch's death about 2 a.m. Saturday. An autopsy was performed Monday at the Ada County Coroner's Office in Boise.
"We presume it to be suffocation due to hanging," Mikel said. "There appeared to be evidence of no other cause of death."
Mikel said Finch likely died within a few minutes of hanging himself.
"I can't say how long it would take, but it would be a very short time," he said. The brain—without oxygen—you can lose consciousness within a minute. It would only take a few moments until he was non-resuscitable."
A press release issued Monday afternoon by the sheriff's office reported that Finch was last seen alive and "sitting on his bunk" by video surveillance at 12:49 a.m. Saturday morning.
"He had also been observed walking around in his cell and working on a puzzle on the floor," the press release states.
A routine physical check of all cell blocks was initiated at 1:25 a.m.
"Control informed the deputy during this security check that Finch was not visible on camera in his cell," the press release states. "The deputy immediately went to the cell occupied by Finch and at approximately 0131 hours Finch was found hanging in the toilet area of his cell, which is not visible by camera."
"We can't film the toilet area," Davis said earlier Monday. "He hanged himself in a blind spot we couldn't see. The camera is positioned so you can see everything but the toilet in that area."
Davis said Finch suspended the bed sheet from a heating unit vent.
He said Finch was in Cell Block 400 in "administrative segregation" because he "wasn't allowed to be around any other inmates."
"He was causing problems and getting into fights with other inmates," Davis said.
He said Finch had been isolated since Oct. 7.
Davis acknowledged that the jail is not "suicide proof."
"I don't know of any that are," he said.
"If an inmate isn't under suicide watch or medical watch, then they're not watching that camera all the time," Davis said. "There was nothing to indicate he was in that state of mind. You can watch the ones who give you signs, but what can you do when they don't give you any?"
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
An inmate hanged himself early Saturday morning at the new Blaine County jail in Hailey. Express photo by Mark Oliver
