Ronesha Murrell is speaking out on the unexplained death of her sister, Ta’Neasha Chappell, following Chappell’s stint at Jackson County Jail in Brownstown, Indiana.
Footage from July 2021 shows Chappell, 23, pleading with jail authorities for hours on end as she lay dying in her jail cell, saying, “I need help.”
The young woman begged for medical attention and to be taken to a hospital while suffering severe stomach pains, vomitting blood, becoming dehydrated and writhing in pain while naked.
“I don’t know what you want me to do unless you’re coughing up something crazy,” one guard told Chappell amid her numerous calls for medical aid on July 16.
The 23-year-old passed away later that day, according to The Courier-Journal.
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Before her death, Chappell was incarcerated at Jackson County Jail for around two months over theft and fleeing from police charges. She was one of few Black women housed at the facility.
“It was heartbreaking to see a loved one just fight for so long, begging, pleading,” Murrell told The Shade Room recently.
From her knowledge, Murrell said white women who were jailed had been “upset” with her sister over an argument about who’s turn it was to have their television watching time in the jail prior to Chappell’s passing. Because of the physical upset the 23-year-old experienced, it was initially speculated that she may have been poisoned by one or more of the white women.
A detainee told Indiana State Police of the argument:
“I just called her [a] ‘Black n—-r b–ch.’ And then she said, for some reason I remember her saying, I remember her exactly saying, ‘Watch your mouth.'”
“And then I yelled n—-r about 50 times,” the inmate said.
The Jackson County Jail confirmed that it provides its detained with cleaning supplies such as chemicals to maintain their cells, detailed in TSR‘s reporting. That said, Murrell shared that the jail has yet to “produce” or identify the exact chemicals being given out.
An autopsy concluded Chappell’s cause of death was “undetermined.” However, a forensic pathologist speculated that the young woman died of “probable toxicity of an unknown substance.”
The forensic pathologist’s report further detailed that Chappell was taken to the hospital after “abnormal behavior and green liquid vomitus with a suspected anti-freeze ingestion.”
Other initially suspected substances Chappell may have ingested included ethylene glycol or methanol.
“Laboratory toxicology testing conducted revealed no anti-freeze in Ms. Chappell’s body or bodily fluids,” a report from the case ultimately mentioned.
Still, a hospital nurse who cared for Chappell after the young woman was finally taken to the emergency room noted that the inmate suffered from “yellowing around her lips and eyes” and produced “dark red” urine.
“With her presentation, and then seeing that urine, I knew that she was really not well,” Jessica Luedeman, Registered Nurse, told Indiana State Police in a statement.
A prosecutor’s report released at the end of December revealed that lab tests didn’t find any cleaning agents in Chappell’s bodily fluids or on some of the food containers they obtained that belonged to her.
With that in mind, the Office Of The Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney closed Chappell’s case, citing no crimes committed by the inmates of employees or the county jail.
“My sister [didn’t] have any major health issues,” Murrell shared. “She was 23 years old. She went in perfectly fine.”
When asked if she and her mother thought Chappell may have received proper and timely attention if she were white, Murrell said that there’s “no doubt” in her mind her sister would have.
Chappell’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against Jackson County Sheriff Rick Meyer, Jail Commander Chris Everhart and seven other jail employees,” The Courier-Journal reported, and the suit remains “open and ongoing.”
“They don’t need to have that type of power,” Murrell told TSR. “All it took was for somebody to make that call when she first notified them and my sister still would probably be here.”
“They need to be charged with negligent homicide, hate crimes, and premeditated murder,” Chappell’s sister added.
See the full interview with Murrell below.
