Signs of distress

In a jailhouse interview on March 7 with a Post-Dispatch reporter, an inmate in a cell next to Catchings’ cell said he appeared to be extremely sick and weak for at least two weeks before he died, and said several inmates on the floor had been worried about him and were devastated when he died.

Desean Pitts, 20, said Catchings had told him his eyes and ears hurt, that he could not hear out of one ear, and that he had pain on one side of his body. Pitts said a nurse repeatedly took Catchings’ vital signs and said they were normal. Pitts said Catchings never left his cell during the times inmates could go to a common area. He said that when he passed Catchings’ cell, he would see him bent over with a blanket over his head. And when Catchings had to appear in court, Pitts said, jail officers had to help him walk.

Catchings may have died several hours before he was discovered, the report found. The medical examiner found a jail guard did not follow protocol by having Catchings stand in his cell when checking on inmates at 10 p.m. the night before. Instead, the guard looked through his cell door window and saw Catchings lying on his back in bed in the same position in which he was later discovered dead.