Bradley County is paying nearly $500,000 to two children whose father hanged himself in jail in 2016, ending a wrongful death claim in Eastern Tennessee’s U.S. District Court.
Jail personnel knew 41-year-old Ralph Nelms was addicted, mentally ill and suicidal when he was arrested and booked for a string of burglaries on Sept. 15, 2016, according to Nelms’ ex-wife, who filed a $5 million civil lawsuit in February 2017.
Instead of placing him in a suicide-proof cell, corrections officers put an erratic Nelms in a booking area, covered the window to his room and left him with his clothing straps, the lawsuit says.
As a result of Nelms’ death, three officers were indicted on criminal charges of official misconduct, tampering with evidence and tampering with governmental records. Two were fired and a third resigned, Bradley County Sheriff’s Office spokesman James Bradford said. Their charges are pending in Bradley County Criminal Court, clerks said Thursday.
Ralph NelmsThe settlement, approved Dec. 7 by U.S. District Court Judge Pamela L. Reeves, clears Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson and the officers – Gabriel Black, Timothy Jason Boyd and Ronald Joshua Reddish – of any civil liability.