VCSO: Daytona jail inmate's death by hanging with bed sheet result of apparent suicide

Photo for Headline Surfer® /  Vincent Tarvin, 29, shown here in this Volusia County Branch Jail mugshot, was apparently despondent over the suicide of his girlfriend, he told an inmate, before he apparently took his own life while incarcerated there on a drug possession charge.
 
By HENRY FREDERICK
Headline Surfer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A 29-year-old inmate found hanging in his cell Monday night at the Volusia County Branch Jail, died three days later, the apparent victim of a suicide, a Volusia County Sheriff's official said.

Vincent Tarvin was found hanging from the top bunk of his cell shortly before midnight on Monday, a bed sheet tied around his neck, Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.

Corrections staff removed the sheet from Tarvin’s neck and initiated efforts to resuscitate him, Davidson said.

Tarvin was then transported to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach, where medical staff was able to stabilize him.

However, Tarvin remained unconscious and on life support until his death at approximately 10:50 p.m. Wednesday.

The preliminary investigation by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t revealed anything suspicious in Tarvin’s death, which at this time appears to be a suicide," Davidson told Headline Surfer®."

His cellmate disclosed to deputies that Tarvin told him that his girlfriend had recently killed herself."

The preliminary investigation by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t revealed anything suspicious in Tarvin’s death, which at this time appears to be a suicide," Davidson told Headline Surfer®." His cellmate disclosed to deputies that Tarvin told him that his girlfriend had recently killed herself."

Tarvin was booked into the county jail earlier in the day Monday on a charge of possession of marijuana not more than 20 grams.

FAST FACTS: Suicide leading cause of death in jails

Inmate deaths in state prisons and local jails increased for the third year in a row in 2013, hitting the highest number since 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced Tuesday, releasing the most recent data available on these fatalities.

• In 2013, 4,446 inmates died—131 more deaths than the year before.
• The local jail suicide rate went up from 40 to 46 inmate suicides per 100,000, for example.
• Since 2009, the jail suicide rate has shot up 12 percent. “As in every year since 2000, suicide was the leading cause of death in local jails, accounting for more than a third (34 percent) of all jail deaths in 2013,” the report says.
• Eighty percent of the jails surveyed, however, did not report any deaths to the BJS in 2013. With state prisons, there were 3,479 deaths in 2013 compared with 3,357 in 2012.
• Unlike local jails, some 90 percent of state prison fatalities were illness related. Cancer caused 31 percent of these deaths, whereas heart disease made up 26 percent.
• At 10 percent, liver disease was “the third leading cause of death in state prisons in 2013,” with 354 deaths in 2013—a 16 percent increase. “Every state department of corrections reported at least one prisoner death in 2013,” the BJS says. “Nearly a quarter of those prisoner deaths occurred in Texas and California. White inmates accounted for more than half of the deaths, and nearly all were male.”