CLEARFIELD – A settlement has been reached in the wrongful death lawsuit against Clearfield County, the former warden and several corrections officers at the county jail.
In the early morning hours of July 8, 2023, Kaitlyn Evans, 31, daughter of Heather and Harold Walstrom and Mark A. Evans Sr., overdosed on drugs while incarcerated at the jail.
A few days prior to Kaitlyn’s death, two other women overdosed at the jail, but both of them were revived. They identified Angela Marie Ricketts as the source of the drugs.
Ricketts hid drugs including Fentanyl, Xanax and Klonopin in a body cavity when she was taken into custody for a warrant on July 5, 2023, police said. She was later charged with multiple offenses including drug delivery resulting in death.
The lawsuit accused the facility of not properly training their employees and said they were indifferent to Kaitlyn’s medical emergency as it took over 40 minutes for them to call 911.
On Friday, Sept. 13, the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania approved a $1 million settlement in the case.
Although he is not permitted to comment on the case, attorney Dylan Hastings of Philadelphia, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Heather Walstrom, stated on Tuesday that the family is “satisfied” with the settlement.
In an interview with the Walstrom’s shortly before the lawsuit was filed, they expressed their frustration with the jail.
Kaitlyn was being held in the facility on drug possession charges. She and two men described as “known drug dealers” were stopped by police in May 2023 and the vehicle in which they were traveling was searched. The officers found cash and a large amount of Fentanyl.
Upon her incarceration, her parents were actually optimistic about her future since she had a history of drug abuse.
“She was going to get state time, get evaluated, get treatment,” Harold noted. “We felt she was safe.”
Heather said their daughter was treated “like a drug addict and not a human.”
“If they had acted when they first saw her (sleeping awkwardly), I think she would be alive,” Harold said in that interview.
Changes have been made at the jail as Warden David Gallagher was fired in December and the county purchased a body scanner to better identify inmates with contraband.
In May, Ricketts was sentenced to serve 87 months to 20 years in state prison with 12 months consecutive re-entry probation, after pleading guilty to drug delivery resulting in death and in a separate case to possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.
According to the affidavit of probable cause in the Ricketts case, the next day after Ricketts was incarcerated, she and two other women did a “line” of drugs together in a cell. Later one of the women started to have a seizure before becoming unresponsive.
While the corrections officers administered CPR on her, the other woman also became unconscious. Both were revived after Narcan was given to them.
On the way to the hospital, one of the women reportedly said she got the drugs from Ricketts.
Ricketts was removed from the cell block and taken to a holding cell, according to information in the petition filed by Hastings asking the court to approve the settlement.
“However, Ricketts had already given Kaitlyn drugs to ‘hold’ after she snorted lines of Fentanyl with the two inmates who overdosed. COs also performed a ‘shakedown’ of cell block E without recovering any drugs. Video surveillance of the ‘shakedown’ shows that it was minimal and that no inmates were physically searched. CCJ took no further action to locate Ricketts’ drugs in cell block E,” it says in the petition.
Around 2:30 a.m. that morning a CO noticed Kaitlyn sleeping in an “abnormal position” and called her name without a response. Although he took no other action, he mentioned it to another CO, and asked her to check on Kaitlyn.
The second CO did not check on her until 3:05 a.m. during her next scheduled wellness round. She could not get Kaitlyn to respond and radioed for help. Kaitlyn was removed from her cell and efforts at CPR were initiated, but this was stopped “because Kaitlyn was vomiting.”
“Unlike the previous overdoses, no medical staff was on duty at this time. Defendants did not call 911 until 3:11 a.m. or approximately 41 minutes” after she was first thought to be unresponsive.
“Further, at no point did defendants attempt to revive Kaitlyn with Narcan or an AED as they successfully did with the previous inmates that overdosed.”
When officers from the Clearfield Regional police arrived at 3:16 p.m., they administered Narcan for the first time. Clearfield EMS continued CPR and used an AED, but she was pronounced dead at 3:34 a.m.
The autopsy listed her cause of death as a Fentanyl overdose.