RICHLAND CO. – A woman who was an inmate for a brief time at the Richland County Detention Center in Olney is dead after an incident at the jail that’s being investigated as suicide.
Shannon Tarpley Cessna, 30, died three days after the December 4 incident, on Wednesday, Dec. 7, when her family had to make the decision to pull her life support.
Family advised that she had had minimal brain activity after the incident, and medical personnel wanted to give her 48 hours after they received her in the ER at Good Samaritan Hospital in Vincennes, Indiana.
Family said the brain activity didn’t show improvement, and rather than prolong the inevitable, they took her off the machines.
The family is somewhat shocked at the way Richland County authorities handled the matter.
However, Richland officials, in the form of State’s Attorney Brad Vaughn and Sheriff Andy Hires, were more forthcoming about what happened – if not specifically the ‘how’ – than the previous county administration under former state’s attorney David Hyde, who wouldn’t issue a press release, vague or otherwise, if his life depended on it.
Vaughn and Hires, to their credit, did indeed issue a press release, on the afternoon of Monday, Dec. 5.
In this release, however, few details were given.
Cessna was not identified in the release; she was called only “a white female.”
Her name has been inserted here at the appropriate spots.
The situation emerged at approximately 9:57 that Sunday night, when Cessna was arrested and transported to the Richland County Sheriff’s Office.
“Due to more than one arrested person being transported at that time,” the release said, “(Cessna) was secured in a holding cell, while another person was being processed into the facility.”
Sources have advised that the other person arrested with Cessna was Brandon Wise, 25.
“While being secured in the holding cell,” the release read, “(Cessna) removed an ace bandage from under her shirt sleeve and applied the bandage around her neck. The ace bandage had been wrapped around her arm to cover a wound on her arm.
“Once this was discovered by Sheriff’s Office employees, they immediately began rendering aid to (Cessna), who was unconscious and not breathing.”
Cessna was transported to Richland Memorial Hospital and later transported to Vincennes, the release stated, concluding with the statement that the incident continues to be under investigation.
Family advised Disclosure that same day that it was their understanding that Cessna somehow managed to actually hang herself with the Ace bandage she’d unwrapped from her arm.
While there is no indication of an actual hanging at the jail, family of Cessna’s advised that when they called Good Sam in Vincennes, treating physicians called it that: a hanging.
A close friend of Cessna’s advised that just two days before the incident, Cessna was at her house and was talking of suicide.
Because of a 2014 meth felony and subsequent arrests since that time (some of which had been dismissed), Cessna was sentenced to 33 months in IDOC, this sentence issued on September 11, 2015.
She had apparently served a short stint in DOC (since 33 months doesn’t equal 33 months for most offenders, but only half that), and had told the friend on the prior Friday, Dec. 2, that she “wasn’t going back to prison,” and if something happened that could send her there, she would rather “kill herself.”
In fact, said this friend, Cessna was wearing the Ace wrap because she had in recent days attempted to slash her wrists. The wrap was there to keep the bandages over the slash marks in place.
Family of Cessna’s hadn’t been aware of a prior suicide attempt with the wrist-slashing, so some were under the mistaken impression that the slashes had been done in the county detention center.
However, that proved not to be the case.
It’s unclear where Cessna and Wise were taken into custody, and no officials have revealed how it was she allegedly obstructed justice, although a good guess would likely be that she gave a false name when authorities were questioning her.
And while family and friends have wondered openly why jail staff were unaware of what Cessna was doing with her Ace bandage until it was too late, the likelihood is that the jail staff simply didn’t realize she had the means to strangle herself until it was too late, as the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing was effectively hiding the bandages and wounds.
It’s unclear whether there are cameras in the holding cell, as no official would comment on it.
However, Disclosure is aware that many county jail holding cells don’t have cameras, simply because the cells are mostly viewable from three sides, as it’s just a temporary placement for someone under arrest until they can be processed in.
Still, there was apparently just enough of commotion at RCDC so that Cessna could carry out what she’d threatened just two days before.
Cessna has a negligible criminal history and friends say that this decline into the drug world over the past couple of years was the result of just hanging out with the wrong type of people, which is more often than not why anyone in southern Illinois gets hemmed up for dope.
Prior to that, friends and family said, Cessna was just a regular gal, who’d gone through a couple of relationships and producing children from them.
She leaves behind a son and two daughters, all under the age of 10.