Amherst County custody death lawsuit alleges sheriff coverup

By Chris Dumond

Published: April 8, 2008

The mother of a man suffocated in the custody of Amherst County deputies has filed new claims that Sheriff Jimmy Ayers conspired with those deputies and the Virginia State Police to cover up her son’s 2005 slaying.

New allegations filed in the suit also claim Ayers tried to get doctors to reconsider the cause of death in the case, ruled by the Virginia Medical Examiner’s

Office as suffocation by police restraint, with cocaine abuse and heart disease listed as contributing factors. The state medical examiner who autopsied the man declined to answer questions about the accusation Tuesday.

The $15 million suit, filed by Melva Taylor Davis in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg, claims current and former Amherst County Sheriff’s Office employees

Debbie Tinnell, Daren Givens, Brian Drewry, D.K. Dodson, and Betty Wise used excessive force in the June 16, 2005, death of her son, Sanchez Jarkel Taylor.

The suit also alleges the deputies and the sheriff conspired to violate Taylor’s civil rights.

Carlene Johnson of Dillwyn, the lawyer representing the sheriff and deputies, has contended in court that Taylor, 28, fought with police in what was believed to have been a frustrated break-in attempt and the restraint that resulted in his suffocation was reasonable.

Ayers declined Tuesday to comment on the charges given the ongoing litigation.

U.S. District Court Judge Norman Moon ruled in January that the excessive force and initial conspiracy claim could go forward, but dismissed the sheriff from the lawsuit last month.

The most recent conspiracy claims, reasserting the sheriff’s role in an alleged cover-up, were filed in response.

In the new allegations, the dead man’s mother claims Ayers conspired with deputies and the Virginia State Police to conduct the homicide investigation in a way that would prevent a criminal prosecution.

Halifax Commonwealth’s Attorney Kim White was asked to handle the criminal investigation by Amherst County Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Maddox due to a conflict of interest.

White has not made a formal determination on possible charges in the nearly three-year-old investigation.

Virginia State Police spokesman Sgt. David Cooper said the state investigation is complete and has been turned over to White. Cooper referred other questions in the matter to her.

White has refused for months to comment on the matter and did not return a call Tuesday.

She has also refused to open the state police investigation file to The News & Advance. Davis’ attorney, Arelia Langhorne of Lynchburg, has said White let her review the file before filing her lawsuit.

White has cited provisions in state law that allow the withholding of such information in the case of an ongoing police investigation.

However, the criminal investigation has long since concluded, according to repeated statements by the state police here and in Richmond.

Likewise, the sheriff’s department has also refused to release its files in the matter, citing an ongoing investigation. Langhorne, however, told the court in January that she was able to get information from a public records request.

In the area’s most recent police custody death, the September 2006 death of Clarence Beard in Lynchburg, city police released an investigative summary report. Lynchburg Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Doucette published both a report on how he reached his decision not to prosecute and portions of a separate Virginia State Police investigation.

Beard’s death is also the subject of an ongoing wrongful death lawsuit in Lynchburg Circuit Court.

In the Taylor case, Dr. David Cresson, the doctor who signed the death certificate, said the accusations that the sheriff tried to persuade medical examiners to change Taylor’s cause of death were incorrect.

“No law enforcement has ever called me like that,” Cresson said. “That’s never happened to me. I’ve had family call and ask, but I think law enforcement knows better than to do that.”

The Lynchburg pathologist noted that he signs death certificates based on autopsy information from the state medical examiner’s office in Roanoke.

Dr. Gregory Wanger, who conducted the autopsy and who now works for Kentucky in a medical examiner’s office near Cincinnati, repeatedly refused Tuesday to say whether the sheriff ever tried to influence his findings.

“I don’t work for the state anymore and I don’t do their press releases for them,” Wanger said finally before hanging up. “There’s a file there and they can look at it and decide what to tell you.”

Tracie Cooper, the district administrator in Wanger’s former office, said she was not working in Roanoke at the time of the autopsy. Cooper said Wanger’s report did not include anything to indicate the sheriff asked for the cause of death to be changed.

The third new claim states that when the sheriff heard Taylor was about to die, he ordered an investigator to swear out an arrest warrant alleging the man was trying to break into the welding shop where he was killed, knowing that it would never be served and that the charge was baseless.

Taylor’s arrest warrant was issued at 7:18 p.m. the night of his death, six minutes before the time of death listed on his death certificate.

The final claim is that the sheriff asked deputies and a state trooper to tell Taylor’s mother that he died of a drug overdose.

The sheriff’s lawyer has denied the conspiracy claims in a new filing this month. Johnson stated that even if the allegations are true, a cover up would not have deprived Taylor of his civil rights.

The judge in the case has not ruled on the new allegations. A trial is scheduled for Sept. 15 through 19.