A Maryland man who was in York County Prison on an old DUI charge was beaten to death by guards, and authorities are trying to cover up what amounts to an “unlawful killing,” his mother claims in a newly-filed federal lawsuit.

Rose Palmer contends in her U.S. Middle District Court complaint that county officials are stonewalling the family’s efforts to get information on what happened to 41-year-old Everett Palmer Jr. on April 9, 2018.

Everett Palmer, a personal trainer, former Army paratrooper and father of two, died in custody that day, two days after turning himself in on the old DUI warrant. He was being held in the prison in lieu of $5,000 bail.

Palmer’s death has drawn national attention from media outlets including the New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN.

County Coroner Pam Gay ruled the cause of his death “undetermined” and said Palmer had toxic levels of methamphetamine in his blood.

Gay’s report said Palmer was housed in a cell at the prison, when he “became agitated” and started banging his head off of his cell door. Officers at the prison were able to restrain Palmer, who was transported to a prison medical clinic, the report states, adding that Palmer was unresponsive at that time. He was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

District Attorney David Sunday has indicated the death is the subject of a grand jury probe, according to John J. Coyle, the Philadelphia lawyer who filed the federal suit. When contacted about the suit on Friday morning, Kyle G. King, a spokesman for the DA’s office, said, “We have not concluded our investigation, the matter remains active.”

The Palmer family is seeking more than $1 million in damages from the county, several of its top officials and 10 unnamed corrections officers. His mother claims Palmer’s death resulted from a “widespread custom of excessive force and inmate abuse tolerated by York County.”

In alleging a coverup of the death, his mother claims it would have been impossible for Palmer to have ingested a toxic dose of meth before entering the prison that would have killed him two days later.

Palmer was held in isolation at the prison, the suit states. The autopsy report states he had multiple abrasions and contusions on his head and limbs and two “puncture defects” on his right forearm, according to the suit.

“The autopsy report further notes that York County correctional officers used physical force on Mr. Palmer, including at least two Taser deployments and a restraint chair,” the suit states. Rose Palmer is claiming the guards injected her son with meth, beat, choked and tased him and then didn’t promptly seek medical care that would have saved his life.

The suit states that when Palmer’s body was released to the family the brain, heart, throat and hyoid bone – a small bone in the throat that is often damaged by strangulation – were missing. The coroner sent those to a private laboratory, according to the suit.

Meanwhile, even though the state Office of Open Records and a county judge supported the family’s Right to Know Law request for the release of documents in the case, county officials have refused to provide that information and instead are appealing the release orders to Commonwealth Court, the suit states.

Rose Palmer is accusing county officials of violating her son’s and his family’s civil rights, including their rights to free speech and equal protection of law.