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Six Deaths in Eleven Months at Washington Jail
The South County Correctional Entity, a jail shared by six cities in Washington’s King County and located in the Seattle suburb of Des Moines, recorded its sixth death in 11 months on February 1, 2025. Known locally as SCORE, the lockup was slammed for inadequate healthcare by a former nurse with its contracted medical provider, Wellpath.
“It was the most unprofessional place I’ve ever worked in my life,” said RN Lisa Rogers.
She was the only medical provider on duty, she said, assisted by two lower-level nurses who handed out medication. Her complaints to supervisors were repeatedly rebuffed, she added, until she was abruptly let go for sleeping on the job in October 2024—one day after she mentioned feeling drowsy to a guard sergeant. Wellpath filed for bankruptcy the following month, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.31.]
The jail’s most recent death was that of Patricia Ryden, 64, but no cause has yet been determined by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office (KCMEO). Before that, Dwight D. Benson, died at a hospital on January 27, 2025, one day after release from SCORE. He had a long history of DUI violations; no cause of death has been determined for him, either.
Garrett Floth, 30, died on November 1, 2024. KCMEO attributed the death to cardiomyopathy accidentally caused by difluoroethane, a canned gas to dust off electronic keyboards, which is sometimes inhaled to get high. Deaken Sullivan, 42, died on July 31, 2024, one day after he was booked into SCORE. The cause of death was “acute fentanyl and methamphetamine intoxication,” KCMEO said. Lori Ann Renfroe, 60, died in an undescribed accident on May 11, 2024, two days after she was booked into the lockup.
Makena Buckland, 21, died of a seizure on March 5, 2024, four days after beginning her fifth incarceration at the lockup. Her death was listed as “natural,” though she choked on vomit from a reaction to fentanyl she had taken. Family attorney Jay Krulewitch said he planned to sue for surveillance video footage and medical records that the jail has so far withheld.
SCORE is co-owned and operated by the cities of Auburn, Burien, Des Moines, Renton, SeaTac and Tukwila, but over half of its detainees are held under contract for other jurisdictions as far away as Bellingham. The in-custody death rate— 828 per 100,000 in 2023, 954 per 100,000 in 2024—far exceeds the national average, last measured in 2019 at 167 per 100,000.
Source: PubliCola
