$150,000 Paid by Jacksonville for Mother of Five’s Jail Suicide
Under an agreement filed with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on April 10, 2025, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters agreed to pay $150,000 to the Estate of Esther Truax, a mother of five who died by suicide while in custody of the City jail in December 2021.
Truax, 35, had been booked into the lockup several times previously, so jailers were “well aware” of her mental health issues and previous suicide attempts when they booked her into the jail after an arrest on drug charges on December 1, 2021, according to the complaint later filed on her behalf. Nevertheless, the complaint continued, a jail nurse cleared her for placement in the jail’s general population. There she tied a bedsheet around her neck three days later and plunged over the second-floor balcony railing.
That didn’t kill her though; fellow detainees managed to haul Truax back onto the balcony. She was then placed on suicide watch on the third floor, though another jail nurse thought her suicide attempt was faked to get medication. While in this stage of her confinement, jail records later showed, Truax didn’t receive all of the withdrawal medication that had been ordered for her.
That same night, on December 4, 2021, she attempted and failed to choke herself, after which she was placed in a four-point restraint. But though guard Alana Woodard was assigned to make cell checks every 15 minutes, Truax somehow managed to strangle herself with the restraint device. She died at a hospital six days later on December 10, 2021.
Sheriff Waters disciplined Woodard. He also strongarmed the City government into giving him veto authority over settlements reached with jail detainees or their estates. Meanwhile, attorneys from Sheppard, White, Kachergus & DeMaggio in Jacksonville filed suit for Truax’s Estate and its administrator, Nancy Simmerson. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, she accused Woodward of violating the detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment rights with deliberate indifference to the serious risk she faced. Simmerson also made a claim against Waters in his official capacity, seeking to extend liability to the City for Woodward’s alleged misconduct, as well as state-law negligence claims.
The district court largely dismissed the latter claim on August 27, 2024, leaving the negligence claims to proceed. The parties then negotiated their settlement agreement, which included $60,000 in fees and $2,375.40 in costs for Plaintiff’s attorneys. The balance of $87,624.50 was being placed by Simmerson into trusts for the benefit of Truax’s children. See: Simmerson v. Waters, USDC (M.D. Fla.), Case No. 3:23-cv-01414.
The nurses involved with Truax were employed by the jail’s former private medical contractor, Armor Health. As PLN reported, the firm buckled in 2023 under the weight of $153.5 million in unsecured debt, including $12 million owed under verdicts and settlements reached in 100 lawsuits; the following year, it exited bankruptcy proceedings largely relieved of the debt and sold its assets to the firm’s original founder, Dr. Jose Armas. [See: PLN, Nov. 2024, p.51.]
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Related legal case
Simmerson v. Waters
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (M.D. Fla.), Case No. 3:23-cv-01414 |
| Level | District Court |