Richland County Jail inmate died of fentanyl intoxication, autopsy shows

A 32-year-old Mansfield woman who was pronounced dead at 9:52 a.m. April 14 at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital after being transported from the Richland County Jail died of fentanyl intoxication, according to autopsy results.

The News Journal obtained the autopsy results for Candice Crose from the Richland County Coroner's Office Tuesday following a public records request.

Crose's mother, Sheila Lambert, on Tuesday said she last saw her daughter April 11 in court and she looked fine.

She talked to her daughter on the telephone several times the day before her death, and she said her daughter also sounded fine.

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"I just want them to do their job," she said of the jail employees. "Just because you're a drug addict doesn't mean you deserve a death sentence.

"No one should have to be going through this. She was supposedly safe there."

Lambert said her daughter left the Richland County Jail Feb. 1 to give birth via C-section at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital. The adoptive family was at the hospital for the girl's birth, Lambert said.

Lambert said her daughter was getting ready to be transferred from the jail to Marysville to the Ohio Reformatory for Women where she had only two months to serve. The final six months of her sentence were to be served at a halfway house.

Lambert said Crose voluntarily called the sheriff's office and told them to come and get her at OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital after the baby was born.

"She didn't run," she said.

Capt. Chris Blunk, jail administrator, earlier said Crose arrived at the Richland County Jail Feb. 5.

Lambert said her daughter wanted to do the right thing and get on with her life.

"Every day when I go by there (the jail) I wonder what happened to her. There were 19 other girls in the same pod with her. I wonder how long she lay there before anybody helped her," she said.

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The autopsy report indicated Crose was brought to the hospital after being found in cardiopulmonary arrest at the jail. The jail team had just placed automated external defibrillator, which signified an indication for shock, and she had been shocked, the report said.

Mansfield Fire Department fire and EMS were called to the jail April 14 at 9:09 a.m.

"Yesterday morning around 9 a.m., corrections staff and medical staff responded to a medical emergency in housing unit 3C11 involving inmate Candice Crose," Richland County Sheriff J. Steve Sheldon said in a news release issued April 15. "Life-saving measures were performed by the staff but unfortunately Crose died at the hospital shortly after arriving. As is custom practice, an investigation is ongoing."

According to a Richland County Sheriff's Office corrections officer's report, obtained by the News Journal through a public records request, first aid and naloxone were administered to Crose at the jail when she was found unresponsive.

The area where she was found had been evacuated for a "sweep" and suspected drugs (in the form of powder) was located in the pod. "The drugs were not collected and the pod remained emptied," the sheriff's report said.

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According to Richland County Common Pleas Court online records, Crose had been sentenced to 12 months at at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville by Common Pleas Judge Phil Naumoff on April 11 on a charge of escape.

She was being sent back to Marysville because she failed to report to her parole officer, her mother said.

Lambert said Crose was a mother of five who first became pregnant at age 14. Her daughter did earn her GED and in recent years battled addiction.

Lambert has retained Mansfield lawyer Jaceda Blazef.

lwhitmir@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Richland County inmate died of fentanyl intoxication, autopsy shows