What happened?
That's the question that doesn’t get answered often for families who lost a loved one in an in-custody death.
The process to get information involves a lot of hoops to jump through, if that information even still exists.
“They're still denying families answers true to what truly happened to their loved ones, and it's not right, it's not fair,” said Paloma Serna, whose daughter died in custody at Los Colinas Detention Center.
In-custody deaths that happened years ago are still leaving families with grief and questions.
“I want transparency. I want accountability. I wanna know why she suffered for so long?” Diana Sanchez, whose daughter died in custody at Los Colinas Detention Center.
One of the most recent deaths, of 53-year-old Linda Bagby in June, left her family speaking up for more thorough investigations.
“And if we're able to get the evidence… There's gonna come a time where we're gonna have to view the footage of my mom dying,” said Ashley Turman, Bagby’s daughter.
That footage can be hard to get.
Back in 2023, ABC 10News covered the lawsuit filed by the Schuck family, Claiming that despite their following correct protocol to preserve it, video of the area around their son’s cell before he died was deleted.
"The loss of something that literally is part of you. That was one thing to deal with, and then there was this other issue of the custody, the neglect... the assumptions, the stigma," said Sabrina Schuck.
Now, a federal magistrate judge believes it could have been on purpose, saying, “The Court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the county had an intent to deprive in deleting the video footage from the missing time period.”
While justice could be closer for Hayden Schuck’s family, for others it’s still up in the air.
But families are asking for the Board that reviews local law enforcement, or CLERB, to step in.
“CLERB investigators under this MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) have the authority to actually go into the scene of a death in custody. They can go and determine where the death occurred, where the relevant video cameras are, and they can request that that footage is saved and preserved so that a thorough and transparent investigation can be done,” Grace Jun, a Civil Rights Attorney who represents several families who lost loved ones when they were in custody. “Our family members don't have the ability to do any of that.”
We reached out to the Sheriff's Office for input, but no comment can be made on active litigation.
