David Witt lowered his voice and leaned forward to whisper his troubles to his mother: There was a guard harassing him and he was scared.

Through the visiting room glass, Rosemary saw the cut on his head and the fear in his eyes, but she didn’t know what to do. She wrote the Darrington Unit warden — but she doesn’t know if he ever received her letter.

“They tortured him there,” she said. “And my hands were tied.”

A few months later, Witt was dead. Now, former Texas prison Sgt. Lou Joffrion is set for trial in coming months for aggravated assault, nearly two years after prosecutors say he slammed the handcuffed 41-year-old prisoner into the concrete floor so hard it killed him.

At the time, Joffrion had just finished six months of disciplinary probation for a previous incident in which he allegedly slammed Witt to the ground, according to state officials.

The fatal use of force was caught on video, paving the way to a rare felony indictment against a prison guard. But family members didn’t learn the circumstances of his death for months — officials did not tell them or the media what had happened and initially did not note it in monthly reports as a homicide or accidental death.

Prison officials Monday condemned the ex-guard’s actions but also offered possible reasons for the violent exchange, chalking it up to the presence of a potent painkiller in the slain prisoner’s blood.

“While the use of force was deemed excessive in the investigation,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Bryan Collier, “an autopsy of offender Witt did find the presence of fentanyl, an extremely powerful synthetic opioid, which could explain the actions which prompted the use of force.”

But it’s not clear whether the drug was smuggled illicitly into prison or given as treatment at the hospital, where Witt underwent surgery before he died. Prison officials did not clarify.

Meanwhile Connie Williams, the attorney representing Joffrion, said his client followed protocol.

“There are some suggestions that he slammed him too hard,” Williams said. “But there was no intent to kill anybody.”

Related: Huntsville prisoner allegedly killed by guard was handcuffed during deadly use-of-force

Even before he went into the Texas prison system, Witt had mental health problems, his family said. Growing up in North Texas, he was a quiet kid but he struggled with depression and other issues. For a few years, he worked at a peanut factory and found a girlfriend.

According to state records, he racked up a few minor charges, including drunk driving and criminal mischief.

Then he went through a bad break-up and, in 2004, caught an aggravated robbery charge. According to his mother, he stole a car and robbed a gas station — a crime that netted him 20 years behind bars.

The first few years of his bid he was in and out of the system’s psychiatric prisons, his mother said. Sometimes, she’d show up to visit and he wouldn’t know who she was. Other times, he wouldn’t know who he was. But overall, he made do — until he went to Darrington, the Rosharon lockup Rosemary still refers to as “the bad prison.”

“He was such a sweet man,” Rosemary said, “and prison destroyed him.”

Over time, he began to look like he’d lost weight and his clothes were often dirty. A few months before his death, his mother said, he showed up with a cut on his head and dried blood.

Around that time, prison officials confirmed, Joffrion was suspended without pay for six days and given six months of disciplinary probation for use of excessive force in another incident involving Witt.

That probation ended in July 2017 — the month before Witt’s death.

Related: Toothless Texas inmates denied dentures in state prison

On the morning of Aug. 16, 2017, Witt allegedly refused to leave the day room and go back to his cell, according to prison spokesman Jeremy Desel. He was acting “erratically” and took off his clothes, put them back on, and pulled an ice cooler off the table.

At first, he allowed himself to be handcuffed but then, officials say, he began resisting.

“Sergeant Lou Joffrion, a 24 year old black male, then came from behind the offender wrapped his arms around his lower legs, picked him up and forced him down to the ground,” Desel said in a statement. “Witt’s hands were restrained behind his back which caused his head to strike the ground first.”

A custodial death report posted online by the Texas Attorney General’s Office describes the violent outburst differently, saying that Witt was “lifted off his feet and slammed to the concrete floor.”

It was enough force that Witt eventually had to be Life Flighted to the hospital in Galveston, though first he was sent to the prison infirmary and then a local hospital. Finally, after two hours of emergency surgery, he died of internal bleeding from a lacerated liver, prison officials said.

Two days later, Joffrion was recommended for termination, but he instead chose to resign, Desel said. Officials referred the case to investigators, who handed it over to prosecutors. Joffrion was indicted in Brazoria County in early December and released on $35,000 bond, court records show.

“The core values of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are paramount and any violation of the public trust will not be tolerated,” Collier said. “TDCJ fully supports the Office of the Inspector General and the District Attorney of Brazoria County prosecuting former Sergeant Joffrion to the fullest extent of the law.”

On HoustonChronicle.com: Texas prisoner sues guards who allegedly planted screwdrivers in his cell

Rosemary found out her son was gone when a chaplain called her at her home in Pottsboro north of Dallas. But, from the explanation she got, it wasn’t clear what happened.

“I thought that another inmate had killed him,” she said.

The September 2017 Emergency Action Center report that notes major incidents and inmate deaths doesn’t show any homicides or accidental deaths for that month. It wasn’t until later that year, once the full autopsy was completed, that officials added a single homicide to the month of August.

The family eventually obtained the autopsy, according Witt’s older sister, Naoma Denman. But she and her mother didn’t understand the terminology and officials still weren’t offering more information.

“The chaplain was the only call we got until we got a call from the prosecutor saying that they had picked up our case because they had found out that there was evidence,” Denman said. “They had a video.”

Questions raised

It’s not clear how often corrections officers get indicted for prisoner deaths in Texas. Last year, an Estelle Unit guard D’Andre Glasper was charged with aggravated assault in connection with the death of a handcuffed inmate at the Huntsville-area prison, Desel said that such incidents were “exceedingly rare.” Glasper’s case is pending.

Joffrion was also charged with aggravated assault instead of murder — in part because it’s an easier case to prove but carries the same sentencing range.

“I want to make sure there’s accountability,” Brazoria County District Attorney Jeri Yenne said. “It’s the same level as murder, a first-degree felony.”

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But, in addition to maintaining that his client was “acting under protocol,” Joffrion’s attorney raised the possibility that he may not have caused Witt’s death. There was, he said, an indication in prison records of some type of altercation on the way to the hospital and the slain prisoner had previous injuries and health problems that could have played a role.

“We know he had other ailments,” Williams said. “But what is a mystery is what happened after this occurred and how those previous injuries relate to his death, and we have been unable to determine what happened during his transport.”

Now, his case is set for trial in September, and Witt’s family plans to be there. But Rosemary knows she won’t stay for all of it.

“I will leave the court when they show the video,” the 72-year-old said.

Since her son’s death, she’s been having nightmares — and watching the footage is more than she can handle, she said.

“I just can’t see it.”

keri.blakinger@chron.com