The blurry line between being a criminal and needing mental health help

For many of us, when we hear anything about an inmate—we may tune out. But WINK News Anchor Corey Lazar looked into a situation that calls into question the blurry line between a criminal and someone in need of mental health help.

One Charlotte County couple’s son took his own life, and it’s a corrections officer who handed him the weapon to do it – a chainsaw. A warning: details of this story are disturbing.

Cindee and Dennis Murphy shared their son’s story. It begins as you’d expect, with proud parent moments.

“Soccer was his best sport and baseball,” explained Cindee.

“He’s our young Sheldon,” recalled Dennis.

“[He} was creative. He was interested in the world,” continued Cindee.

The struggle begins

But that full-of-life, blonde ray of light started to struggle in his teens. Tristin dropped out of high school and started working. During Hurricane Irma in 2017, the young father worked for a landscaping company.

It’s then that Tristin’s story changed.

“He decided he wanted to start his own business. We started helping him with the process of making sure he had his business license and his insurance,” explained Mom. “I think just all the pressure of that. That’s when we started like, ‘Whoa, Tristin. What are you talking about?’ The gnomes in Punta Gorda, they don’t have cameras. They’re not following you.”

Legal troubles

Tristin lost custody of his two boys in 2018. Later that year, he was charged with five felonies after trying to see his sons, who were in his parents’ custody.

The Murphys said the situation escalated. Court records state when Charlotte County deputies tried to take Tristin into custody, he struggled with them.

A lieutenant used a Taser that shocked Tristin in his stomach and side area. They also used knee strikes and a baton before he was arrested and taken to jail.

“He was just pacing in front of the video camera, wouldn’t sit down. He was talking to me, very agitated, using the f-word a whole lot,” Cindee stated. “He told me that he had been found on the floor of his cell, and he had had gallbladder surgery because he’d been found bleeding internally in his jail cell.”

None of it was true.

“He had not at that point been diagnosed with schizophrenia,” Tristin’s mother explained. “We didn’t know how bad his mental condition was.”

The Diagnosis

Five months after his arrest, Tristin was declared incompetent to stand trial. Six months after that, he was found guilty, credited with time served and put on probation. By then, he had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

His last encounter with law enforcement would happen in December of 2019.

Tristin drove his truck into a pond on the grounds of the Charlotte County Jail. He was arrested for littering.
  
“The first thing that went through my mind was, was he trying to commit suicide?” asked Cindee. “You know, he drove his truck into a pond. I don’t know that that was the case.”

I think it’s just a cry for help. Dennis Murphy

“What do you think was missed that day?” asked Lazar.

“You know, he had a history. They knew he’d been in the jail before,” recalled Cindee. “He’d only been out for what? Eight months, nine months. Why couldn’t they have said, ‘You know, wow, this doesn’t make sense for him to drive his truck in the pond. He doesn’t seem right. Let’s see if we can get him some mental health’?”

“I raised the flag the very next day. I sent a fax to the nurse and to the judge,” said Cindee. “I beg them to help him get the help he needed.”

Tristin spent 505 days in the Charlotte County Jail, much of it in solitary confinement.

He heard voices in his head. His parents explained, “Oh, and you couldn’t even recognize it as being him talking. Totally different voice and, and it’d be like, ‘Ma’am, you need to listen to your son. He knows what he’s talking about. You need to do what he says.'”

He would be found guilty a year and a half after his initial arrest and sent to the South Florida Reception Center in Miami-Dade County. It’s the last place he’d ever be locked up. The Murphy’s fun, loving, athletic ray of sunshine took his own life after he was handed a chainsaw on work duty.

The Fight

“That was just, I went from being just grieving to just being so angry,” said an emotional Cindee. “Like, how could somebody with his mental health have been given access to the chainsaw?”

That’s a good question. One that the Murphys cannot get answers to. Tristin’s fellow inmates are the only ones who offer insight. Their comments were captured on law enforcement body cameras.

The grieving will never end for the Murphys, but it now comes with anger and a raging passion to fight.

“Well, we’re being noisy. I mean, for two years, I’ve just held this and because my grief has been too deep. But now I’m fighting, fighting mad,” Cindee said. “I think it’s the jail staff [they’re] like, ‘Well, we just warehouse him here. It’s not our job to move him from here.'”

What’s needed?

• More accountability
• Fewer cookie-cutter guidelines because not everyone fits the same mold
• As a society, we need to figure out how to make sure inmate mental health is not ignored.

Nearly in tears, Cindee lamented, “It’s just tormented me for so long. Did I do enough then? Did I do everything that I could then? I’m fighting for him now, but did I fight hard enough for him then?”

The family filed a Civil Rights lawsuit against the Florida Department of Corrections for negligence and wrongful death. The agency has not responded to the lawsuit or our request for comment.

The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office is not named in the suit. They did provide WINK News with the statement below:

“Sheriff Prummell has been a vocal advocate for increased mental health services in the state of Florida. He was appointed chair of the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse by Gov. DeSantis, and in this role, he provided insights and suggestions to improve those services for all who need them. He has forged partnerships with other local agencies to create programs such as the Drug Addiction Recovery Initiative and our innovative IRIS (Integrated Response for Intervention and Support) Unit.

At the Charlotte County Jail, every inmate that comes through the doors is met by our healthcare team during intake. If there is reason to believe the inmate has any mental health concerns that could result in harm to self or others, the inmate is housed-in-infirmary, meaning that they are not placed in a general population pod. In cases where the inmate is not housed-in-infirmary but is perceived to be suffering from a mental health condition, they are kept in their cell, alone, and in sight of a deputy. We do not have a “solitary confinement” area.

A licensed mental health professional is made available during normal working hours and there are deputies specially trained in Crisis Intervention.

When an inmate is transferred into or from the Charlotte County Jail, a file must be sent along with them, containing the medical records of the inmate, to include mental health diagnoses. Our file also includes recommendations, such as declaring the inmate as not suitable for work release (as in the case of Tristin Murphy).

Sheriff Prummell has been on record as saying that jail is not the place for people suffering from mental health conditions and he continues to fight for an improved system of mental health care in Florida to address that. He has argued that the burden of identifying individuals with mental health disorders should not and cannot fall on law enforcement. Correcting this issue will require a dedicated, statewide effort from numerous entities, and that process needs to be happening immediately.”