A Cobb County inmate awaiting extradition to Colorado died Thursday afternoon, more than a day after attempting suicide in the county jail, the sheriff’s office said.
Jail staff found the man Wednesday morning after noticing he didn’t respond to a routine 6:30 a.m. check-in, agency spokeswoman Saba Long said in a news release.
“Deputies immediately engaged in CPR and requested an ambulance,” Long said, adding the GBI was called in to investigate. He was pronounced dead Thursday at 3:45 p.m.
Officials said the hospital’s ethics committee agreed not to resuscitate the inmate “given the nature of his medical condition.”
Authorities are not releasing the man’s name because they’re still working to contact the inmate’s family in his home country, Long said. Officials have not said where the man was from or how long he had been in jail.
Long said the inmate faced multiply felonies and was awaiting extradition to Colorado for “alleged crimes of a sexual nature.”
After taking office in January, Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens announced his office would no longer investigate inmate deaths, letting the GBI conduct those investigations instead.
Thursday’s suicide is at least the 10th time a Cobb inmate has died in custody since December 2018.
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