MILPITAS — A man being held in the Elmwood men’s jail was found dead Thursday, marking Santa Clara County’s fifth in-custody death of the year, according to authorities.
The sheriff’s office, which operates the county jail system, said in a news release Friday that deputies found a 41-year-old man unresponsive in his barrack just after 10 a.m. On-site medical staff tried to resuscitate him, but he was pronounced dead at 10:50 a.m.
While the death is under investigation, “preliminary information showed no evidence of foul play,” the sheriff’s office said.
The man’s name has not been publicly released pending his formal identification and notification of his next of kin by the county Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office. Authorities said he was being held at the jail after being booked Dec. 5 on felony sexual assault charges.
This marks the second in-custody death reported by the sheriff’s office this week. Monday, a 75-year-old man, who had been held in the Main Jail in San Jose since 2018 on a warrant alleging felony sex crimes, died from an undisclosed “advanced medical condition” that prompted his transfer from the jail infirmary to Valley Medical Center on May 7.
The man, whose name has not been released by the coroner’s office, had a do-not-resuscitate order on file, the sheriff’s office said, and he was scheduled for an imminent court hearing about qualifying for a compassionate release from custody.
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On April 6, Austin McKean Sanders, a 27-year-old San Jose resident, died at the Main Jail after being found unresponsive in his cell. His cause of death is still pending, according to the coroner’s office. He was booked Oct. 20 on suspicion of attempted robbery, attempted burglary and vandalism.
In February, two men died in county jail custody, according to the sheriff’s office. On Feb. 4, 59-year-old Rick Alan Giles was found dead at the Main Jail after being found unresponsive. He was booked Jan. 6 for a parole violation, and an autopsy determined he died from complications related to chronic congestive heart failure brought on by methamphetamine use.
On Feb. 17, 57-year-old Anthony Ricardo Robinson died at the Elmwood jail, where he had been held since a Dec. 14 arrest on suspicion of shoplifting, burglary, larceny and grand theft. An autopsy concluded that he died from hypertensive cardiovascular disease.
In all of the county jail deaths so far this year, the sheriff’s office has stated that investigators found no immediate evidence that foul play was involved. It is unclear to what extent, if any, that their custody conditions might have contributed to the circumstances of their deaths.
