Jim McDougal Denied Heart Medicine
Before Death, Inmates Charge
By CARL LIMBACHER
*Exclusive*
OYSTER BAY -- Prison officials withheld crucial heart medication from key Whitewater witness James McDougal just hours before he suffered cardiac arrest and died, according to new inmate accounts obtained by the Washington Weekly. And when McDougal collapsed in distress, guards at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth were within earshot -- but took no immediate action, these same sources allege. By one account, medical staff did not attend to McDougal till nearly an hour after guards first noticed his emergency.
The written accounts by McDougal's fellow prisoners were provided Thursday by Boston Globe reporter Curtis Wilkie, after a lengthy interview based on his McDougal biography, "Arkansas Mischief, The Birth of a National Scandal."
Mr. Wilkie agreed to share the inmates' letters only after concealing their identities. But the authors' names are known to him. Wilkie told the Washington Weekly that he does not suspect foul play in McDougal's death but, he added, "if there's something there that needs to be exposed, I hope it gets exposed." In that spirit he graciously agreed to make the potentially explosive accounts public.
The more detailed of the two letters is lengthy. But because of the sensitive nature of the subject matter, the Washington Weekly reprints the text here in verbatim form, with only passages that might reveal the author's identity deleted:
May 13,1998
Dear Sir,
Greetings! It took a long time to find you. I was a friend of Jim's while he was here, in fact I made his time easier..... Jim's death greatly saddened me. We weren't real close but we talked quite a bit and he made light of just about everything, a very witty man. I'm a (profession deleted) and so we had plenty of stories to trade, and I was well aware of the book the two of you were working on -- he was excited about its upcoming release.
I've talked to a number of inmates concerning his death. I've written (to) a couple of publications and quite frankly it is very frustrating being so limited here. Jim's death might have been natural, but there are a suspicious number of coincidences and at the very least the prison was neglectful.
1. This was at least his second summons to take a urinalysis test. After the first one, he told me his medication wouldn't allow him to pee on demand. He told his doctor and the doctor noted it in his medical file. Therefore, he shouldn't have been tested or thrown in the "hole".
2. Once he was in the hole, he requested his heart medication. He was repeatedly denied the medication. (I don't know what he was taking beyond an anti-depressant)
3. The staff in the hole is required to make a visual check on all the hole inmates every half hour. They did not do this but instead they played cards less than 10 feet from Jim's cell.
4. After it was discovered that Jim was sick, the staff waited ten minutes to open his cell. The medical staff arrived some 45 minutes later. This prison is called a medical center. Sick or terminal inmates from around the system are sent here because of better medical treatment than where they were. There are five units and of those five, two are for the more serious cases. Jim and I both lived in one of the two, Ft. Worth. On our unit, the more serious cases, like Jim, live on the ground floor. Further, Jim was on a list of about 20 inmates who were checked up on every hour by a qualified person (qualified as in life saving techniques).
My point is that Jim was treated with kid gloves. He had definite medical problems which were severe and yet he was thrown in the hole. We have a mini-hospital on the grounds here. It houses inmates that are recovering from surgery or very ill people. It also has its own hole, specifically for the sick or people that need monitoring, that act up. These inmates are watched 24 hours a day. Why wasn't Jim placed in here???
5. After Jim's body was removed from his cell. The officers were sitting around a desk/card table. A couple guys in suits come in and tell the jailers to fill out reports, even to go as far and tell them that they should write down that they checked on Jim every half hour --- when in fact they did not.
This revelation directly contradicts the Ft. Worth Medical Center's claim, noted in March news reports, that Jim McDougal was monitored at half hour intervals during the period of his solitary confinement. The inmate's letter concludes:
At the very least Jim's death should be investigated beyond just the autopsy. I found an attorney in (location deleted) who is interested and I've spoken to an editor at (name of publication deleted). I have been waiting for (name deleted) to type up his affidavit in order to send it to you, he was there next to Jim and was the last person to speak to him. I will enclose both my letter to (aforementioned publication) as well as the attorney. I only want Jim's death exposed, the prison exposed too. I am very limited here but you are
not. As his friend I hope you will pursue the truth. I will send you (name deleted) papers ASAP. Good luck to you.
In a separate letter sent to Curtis Wilkie, another inmate corroborates the allegation that McDougal was in distress and that his jailers knew it but did nothing. The inmate writes in part:
Two hours later darkness engulfs the compound and James is still unable to urinate. He is ordered to the lieutenant's office. There he is handcuffed behind his back and taken across the compound to the hole. Later that evening he complains about the cold and chest pains. The guards ignore his cries for help. He whined the last time he was in the hole..... During the ten o'clock count they found James unconscious (sic) on the floor of his cell in the hole. An hour later after being evacuated by helicopter to the best heart treatment facility in Ft. Worth, James was pronounced dead.
Curtis Wilkie was also good enough to forward a recently published version of McDougal's death written by a third inmate who was willing to be named on the record. This version appears in the June 1 - 15 issue of the newsletter "CounterPunch", written by Ken Silverstein and Alexander Cockburn. The inmate, T. J. Lowe, claims he was being held in the cell next to McDougal during McDougal's final hours. Lowe's story echoes the observations of the other two prisoners. He writes, in part:
I saw (Jim) the night before he died be placed in the cell next to me. He looked scared. He was asking for his medication. When you go to the hole they empty your pockets, nothing comes with you, not even medication. Jim normally carried digitalis. The guards told him he would see a physician's assistant later. He was scared and upset.
But T. J. Lowe added a new wrinkle; one that suggests that McDougal's jailers may have had cover-up in mind as soon as the body was whisked away. Lowe reports on what happened next:
(An inmate) is taken out of his cell. He is told to mop, scrub and paint (McDougal's) cell and does this immediately. This is never done here, never, when (an inmate dies). It might be swept a couple days later, probably not usually. This time it got scrubbed and painted within the hour. We all said, "What's up with that?"
The letters to Wilkie and the "CounterPunch" report add a disturbing new dimension to already troubling inmate accounts first reported by the Washington Weekly's Wesley Phelan in May. (See "Autopsy of Jim McDougal Raises New Questions: Prison Inmates Alert McDougal's Physician to Mistreatment," May 18, 1998)
The Washington Weekly has obtained the long awaited autopsy report for Jim McDougal. It references the previously reported toxic -- but not lethal -- dose of Prozac. But apparently no test for heart medication was performed, so the report cannot settle the allegations by the inmates. Instead of tests for heart medication, McDougal after his death was tested for alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and opiates. All tests were negative.
Published in the Jun. 29, 1998 issue of The Washington Weekly. Copyright 1998 The
Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com). Reposting permitted with this message
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