The lump beneath the blanket on the inmate's bed made it appear as if he was asleep in his cell at the Franklin County jail when a deputy arrived with a breakfast tray.

But when the deputy couldn't rouse the inmate by shouting and pounding on the cell door, he noticed something unusual. He could see the inmate's feet, not in the bed, but behind a sheet that had been draped across the bars. He reached around the obstruction and discovered that the inmate had used another sheet to kill himself.

Despite efforts by the jail staff and Columbus fire paramedics to revive him, 58-year-old Woldai Gebremedhin was pronounced dead about 40 minutes later at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.

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Gebremedhin's death on the morning of Jan. 27 was one of two suicides in Franklin County's Downtown jail this year, according to statistics provided by the sheriff's office in response to a public records request. Neither death had been reported to the public by the sheriff.

Those two cases in the first four months of 2019 equal the number of suicides in the previous four years at the county's two jails, Downtown and on Jackson Pike. The jails recorded no suicides in 2015 or 2016 and one each in 2017 and 2018.

The statistics show 13 suicides in Franklin County's two jail facilities since the beginning of 2009. Ten occurred in the Downtown jail and three at Jackson Pike.

Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said in a statement: “The Franklin County sheriff’s office is continuously reviewing the policies, procedures and operations of all divisions within the agency, which includes anytime there is a suicide or attempt in either of our jails ... and we are fully committed to ensuring the overall health and well-being of the inmates, deputies and other staff at all our correctional facilities.”

Baldwin's office, however, did not respond to requests for specifics about the suicides, how they are reported, suicide-prevention efforts or the jail's mental-health program, which the Council of State Governments honored last year as one of seven in the country worth emulating.

No law requires jails to make the public aware when a suicide occurs, but such transparency is important, said Jeff Mellow, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York who co-authored a recent study on jail-suicide statistics.

"A critical incident in a jail, whether it's an escape, a riot, a TB outbreak or a suicide, should be reported to the public," he said. "Jails are part of the community, and they should keep the community apprised, even when things aren't going as well as they'd like.

"I can understand if they're reluctant, but the best policy is to be as transparent as possible."

Mellow said 13 suicides in just over 10 years in the Franklin County jails, which house about 2,100 inmates a day, isn't an alarming number.

He added, however, that "Two suicides in the first four months of this year is definitely something you want to review and assess and make sure all policies are in place to identify inmates who demonstrate suicidal ideation and manage those who are mentally ill."

Gebremedhin was awaiting trial on an aggravated murder charge. He was accused in the Nov. 21, 2018, shooting death of mechanic Mulugeta Shiferaw, 47, outside an auto-service garage in the 4200 block of East Main Street in Whitehall.

The native of Ethiopia had pleaded not guilty and had been in jail since his arrest on Dec. 3.

He left behind a rambling, three-page note in which he maintained his innocence. It doesn't read like a suicide note, but ends with a list of personal items "for my children." He concluded by writing, "I miss them. I give up my life. 50 day in jail I feel like 58 years."

The sheriff's investigation of the death, obtained through a public-records request, found that deputies weren't making rounds as often as required on the floor where Gebremedhin was being held in the hours leading up to the suicide. The two deputies assigned to the floor had made rounds once an hour rather than twice, as required by an order issued in August 2017.

The deputy who filled out the log book that morning was disciplined with counseling from a shift supervisor, the records show.

The investigative report doesn't address whether the suicide could have been prevented if deputies had conducted twice-hourly rounds.

All deputies and inmates interviewed during the investigation said Gebremedhin never mentioned suicidal thoughts and showed no signs of wanting to harm himself.

Dr. Jeffrey Metzner, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and an expert on inmate suicides, said the best prevention strategy begins at intake, with a screening to identify inmates who are at high risk for suicide. A strong mental-health program should be in place to provide ongoing assessments of inmates to help identify those who aren't a suicide risk when they enter but may become high-risk after some time behind bars, he said.

"People commit suicide because they feel helpless, worthless and that they don't have a future," Metzner said. "In jail, these things are more intensified. Inmates can be quite depressed and feel quite shamed, and they lose their support system."

Suicide is the leading cause of death in local jails, ahead of heart disease, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is the only agency that collects data about deaths in adult correctional facilities. From 2000 to 2014, for which the bureau's latest report was issued, suicides accounted for 31 percent of all local jail deaths.

The number of suicides in local jails and prisons has dropped significantly nationwide since the 1980s through prevention programs and jail designs that allow for better monitoring of inmates, Metzner said.

Franklin County is constructing an 870-bed jail on Fisher Road on the West Side, scheduled to replace the Downtown jail in 2021. Marc Gofstein, the sheriff's office spokesman, said it is designed with a "pod system" in which deputies will be stationed in the housing units with the inmates.

Metzner said that sounds like the "direct supervision model" now popular in corrections, which gives deputies continuous interaction with inmates and a better handle on their problems.

jfutty@dispatch.com

@johnfutty