The woman was put behind bars Friday afternoon. According to The New Orleans Advocate, she was accused of an "unspecified offense." Upon entering, she told authorities that she'd been using heroin and alcohol daily for several years, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office told The Advocate.
Officials told the press that at 6:45 that evening, she refused to take her detox medication. She was found unresponsive around 9 p.m. and paramedics were unable to resuscitate her.
Few other details, including the name of the woman, have been released.
In December of last year, another freshly booked inmate died in a New Orleans jail's detox program. Dennis Edwards, 41, died on December 15, 2017. While the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office said he died of natural causes, a former nurse at the Orleans Parish jail's medical clinic sued the sheriff and Correct Care Solutions, the jail's health contractor, earlier this month, accusing its supervisors of ignoring her when she insisted that Edwards needed to be taken to the hospital.
Data on in-custody deaths is notoriously hard to come by in the United States. Only two states mandate reporting on it: California and Texas.
