December 6, 2023 • 56 mins
An ominous email thread among correction officers led to Layleen’s placement in the Restrictive Housing Unit, which politicians and advocates alike agree is just another name for solitary confinement. Inside cell #6, Layleen’s day started like any other on Friday June 7. But as the afternoon unfolded, video footage shows Layleen left unattended by correction officers when she suffered a fatal seizure. The manner of her death was documented as natural, yet it seems anything but.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The
Outspoken podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just
a heads Up, The following episode discusses transphobia, sexism, racism,
(00:24):
physical violence, police violence, sexual assault, and suicide. Take care
while listening. It's May twenty fourth, twenty nineteen, exactly two
weeks before Leileen Polanco's death. She returned to Rikers Island
(00:45):
after spending over a week at Elmhurst Hospital Psychiatric Prison
ward As Leileen waited in the main intake of the
women's jail, an assistant deputy Warden began an email thread
about where to house her. Kate McMahon investigated Layleen's death
(01:06):
on behalf of the Board of Correction, a watchdog agency.
Kate read these emails and seized them as further evidence
of the disorder Layleen experienced during her time at Rikers.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Her journey through the jails and the different housing years
are pretty chaotic. She's bouncing between different trenchgender housing units
that she's been a transgender new admissions area, So it's clear,
I think from following her journey through these different housing
areas and then being sent to the psychiatric border coming
back that they didn't really know what to do with her.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
After Layleen arrived back at the women's jail, the assistant
Deputy Warden emailed a request for her to be moved
to another facility because of her previous conflicts in the
jail's transgender housing units. Several correction offices were copied on
the email thread, but most of the correspondences between two people,
(02:06):
Assistant Deputy Warden Jessica Rodriguez and Captain Rosemary Ellerb. Rodriga
suggested that Leyleen be moved to general population in a
men's gail. Obviously, this would never be on the table
if Leyleen was a SIS woman. Captain Ellerb suggested instead
(02:31):
that Rodriguez fill out the paperwork to house Lealen in
protective custody at Rikers. We asked Robin Robinson, a former
social worker in Riker's LGBTQ plus affairs unit, why Llerb
would propose that.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'll try to explain this best second, because even I
have an issue with understanding it completely. When they're having
an issue with a person in custody who has caused
harm to them in some way. It could be physical assault,
it could be related to gain violence. It could be
a sexual assault, right, So if there is no other
(03:10):
housing unit that would be safer for them, then they
would be placed in protective custody.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Robin thinks this actually would have been a workable option
for Leileen.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think it would be a better situation because you know,
in protective custody there are going to be other folks
in the unit. In some facilities, there are what we
are called unofficial LGDQ housing units, so a lot of
the folks were of the community, so that just made
the environment safer. So had that been the case, honestly
think she would still be alive.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But that's not what happened. This email thread would be
a deciding factor in Layleen's faith. A few key strokes
between these decision makers would send her somewhere that put
her life in danger. I'm Raquel Willis and this is
Afterlive episode four forty one minutes. Two weeks before Layleen's death,
(04:37):
Riker's officials were gathered on an email thread to decide
where in the jail complex to house her. After a
few ideas were floated, Assistant Deputy Warden Jessica Rodriguez replied
to the group saying that actually Layleen owed days in
solitary confinement. She was referring to a two and day's
(05:00):
sentence in solitary that Leyleen was assigned after her first
fight at Rikers but hadn't yet served. But Rodriguez couldn't
just put Layleen in solitary right away. Correctional health staff
had to approve the decision. Rodriguz wrote that a doctor said,
(05:21):
due to the subject inmates medical history, he would not
be able to authorize a cell housing placement for Leiyleen.
Another officer chimed in, we tried very hard to get
inmate cleared, but mental health just won't clear her. David
shanis Layleen's family's lawyer, says the conversation about Leileen and
(05:44):
solitary should have ended there.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Even under the jail's policy at the time, she was
medically ineligible for solitary confinement, both because of her serious
mental health diagnoses and because of her well documented epilepsy,
And that was really a no brainer in terms of
making someone ineligible for solitary confinement. Why Because in solitary confinement,
(06:13):
a person is locked in a box and away from
everyone else, and obviously, if a person has a seizure, disorder.
They can become hurt, they could become incapacitated, they can die,
and people won't be there to render aid.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Captain Ellerby jumped back into the thread with some urgency
and insisted they find housing for Leileen. That night, again
she brought up the idea of protective custody, and an
application for Layleen's placement was submitted with the argument that
she would be vulnerable in a general population unit. Officers
(06:55):
also said Layleen told them she didn't want to be
in general population, but the application was denied within hours.
A captain who coordinated placements and protective custody, said there
isn't any evidence to substantiate or validate this claim, and
that a fear of safety solely on an inmate's word
(07:18):
is insufficient for placements. At this point, the officers deciding
Layleen's fate are at a standstill. One officer asked the
unit in charge of protective custody where they think Layleen
should be housed. The back and forth doesn't end that night.
(07:43):
For five days, as they debated what to do, Layleen
was returned to the transgender housing unit new admission. This
was a group of cells surrounding a common room supposedly
designed to be square one for new entries into the unit.
So what Kate told us? This isn't an official housing
area and isn't subject to proper supervision. Plus Layleen was
(08:09):
the only one in there, not a safe situation for her.
Here's Kate again, a transgender new admissions area, which is
supposed to be an area you're in for a very
short amount of time, but she was there by herself
for up to five days. It's May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen,
(08:30):
ten days before Layleen's death, and something very strange happens.
Days earlier. One psychiatrist decided Layleen was in no condition
for solitary confinement. Officers worked off that assumption, looking for
other places to house Layleen, but then input from a
(08:54):
new mental health clinician appeared. We can't be certain why
another opinion was thought, but this clinician approved Layleen for
a type of solitary called the restrictive housing unit, or
the RHU. The officers just had to get one more
(09:14):
sign off, this time from a medical doctor. Here's lawyer
David Shanas Again.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
A medical doctor was asked, can this person be put
in solitary? In light of their seizure disorder, and they
answered yes to me, if anyone were going to be
held criminally accountable for l'ylan's death, that's the direction I
would have looked.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The morning after this pretty baffling approval, Layleen was headed
to the RHU.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Certainly, some very hard questions needed to be asked about
how a doctor could have said that that was medically acceptable.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
The days of confusion over where to house Leyleen underscore
the violence that the carceral system can inflict on trans
women and people of color. Leyleen, like many in the system,
was reduced to a series of charts, approvals, and emails
(10:21):
and administrative task to get through instead of being treated
with humanity.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
We knew that Layleen was a trans woman of color
and that people like her are often getting the worst
treatment in an already horrible place, But was her transness
actually a cause of her death? It wasn't clear. From
the outset of this case. We saw basically all of
(10:49):
the emails, the various memos going back and forth about this,
and we found out that the answer was yes, it
absolutely was. Because the lack of of available housing for
trans inmates is what put pressure on these various Corrections
officials to find some place to warehouse her, which they
(11:10):
ultimately decided would be solitary confinement, and that ended up
being a death sentence for her.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
A housing decision is not just something to be filed
away among mountains of paperwork. It's a matter of life
and death, and that's especially true for trans people. Cecilia
Genteely experienced this firsthand. She's an activist and author who
(11:38):
we've heard from throughout the series. She's been incarcerated in
the past for sex work, and at one point when
she was at Rikers, the doc transferred her into the
custody of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and because this
woman refused to be housed with her, ICE officers moved
(12:00):
her into solitary confinement too. Can you talk a little
bit about how that isolation, I mean, what that feels like,
maybe for folks who are unfamiliar.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
The fact that I was putt in isolation was terrible,
But the fact that I was put in isolation as
a result of my sisters not allowing me to be
with them, it's really sad. And then you have isolation
(12:38):
on itself, right, and what it means to be in
a room by yourself with your thoughts. And I have
had a couple of moments with suicidal ideation during my life.
(13:00):
There were not too many, but there were moments where
I was like, in a really bad moment in my
life and I had the ideation while in isolation in
the middle of Manhattan on Barrick Street, and I picture
(13:22):
the whole execution of my plan. Right. So that says
a lot about what isolation can do to a person, right.
It can really bring you to places where your life
(13:43):
becomes secondary, where dying could be the best choice. I
hope that, as hard as it is, in words, can
somehow explain what isolation feels like.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
This is what Leileen was up against. This is where
a doctor proved her to stay. There are health professionals
(14:34):
like doctor Homer Venters who feel that this should never
be a part of their obligations.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
When security staff say they decide they want to punish
somebody or put them in a solitary setting, they've declared
to the world that's their intent.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Doctor Venters worked at Rikers for eight years and has
served as the chief medical officer for all New York
City jails. The job in twenty seventeen, two years before
Leyleen's death, but has continued to advocate for better health
policies behind bars. Although correctional health services is technically independent
(15:14):
from the doc and officers at Rikers, health professionals there
still face immense pressure from the jail to fall in line.
Doctor Vinters told me about instances where doctors and medical
staff were verbally threatened by CEOs for trying to advocate
for incarcerated patients.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
For an a loane nurse or doctor or psychologist or
social order to say stop this is not a good
idea puts them at odds with a much more powerful
set of forces that they may stand up to. But
my experience is especially over time, as you work more
years in the correctional settings, part of your survival calculus
(15:57):
may be that you don't stand up in these settings.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
It's pressure like this that may have led a doctor
to clear Layleen for solitary Remember that email chain where
officers insisted that Leyleen owed days. One person said quote,
we tried very hard to get inmate cleared, but mental
health just won't clear her. But then suddenly she was cleared.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
We worked hard on this idea that it is not
the job of health staff to be part of the
punishment of people. The effectiveness of health staff is really
an important stamp of approval. The World Medical Association and
other ethics organizations have long identified this as a problem.
Our patients don't trust us, and they think that we're
just part of the system that's harming them, and so
(16:51):
they won't trust us with other important health issues.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Later on, while working at Rikers, doctor Venter's witness the
effects of solitary confinement up close. His office was right
next door to a solitary unit. One of the things
that surprised me most was descriptions of how these units sound.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
The office I had was in a little trailer on
the edge of Riker's Island, and it was next to
the bing which was the big solitary unit at OBCC.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's one of the men's tales.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
We would hear all day long, the yells and screams
of people who are in those five stories of solitary confinement.
This juxtaposition of this old, soon to be washed out
trailer versus this big, sturdy edifice, it gave a good
sense of where the priorities were for the system.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Doctor Venters made it a point to study the harmful
effects of solitary confinement.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
These are profoundly dehumanizing settings. They're dehumanizing by design, the
way they're structured, the way they're run. So the most
acute is a solitary confinement unit where you have staff
that are being told or asked to do things that
are directly harmful to people.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
In one study, doctor Vinters and a team of other
doctors and health professionals analyze a quarter of a million
GEL admissions. They found that people who had been punished
by solitary had an approximately seven times higher likelihood of
self harm.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
So yes, I think those circumstances that's torture.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
With the reputation that solitary confinement has, the doc has
made it a point to say that Laleen's placement and
the Restrictive Housing Unit RHU meant that she wasn't officially
in solitary confinement. Our AGU is essentially a rebranding of
solitary confinement. Similar euphemisms are increasingly common.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Often correctional settings will say we don't do solitary confinement,
but if you go into jails and prisons, you'll often
find that there are new versions with different names. And
what's pretty maddening is that these new versions of solitary
might have a health label. So the greatest example of
(19:35):
this is the mental health watch cell, where a person
has a mental health crisis and they are placed into
a cell, locked cell by themselves, often without any clothes
except for a suicide smock, and they might be there
for days or weeks or months, and that is solitary confinement.
But it's another version of solitary.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You'll see names like segregated housing, isolation room confinement, or
behavior treatment units. At rikers, it's called punitive segregation. And
then there's the RHU where Leyleen was sent. In Kate
McMahon's investigation of Leyleen's death, she makes it clear that
(20:22):
the RHU is solitary in everything but name.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
There is a lot of semantic arguing around the term
solitary confinement. There are jail experts who will say that
if you have more than two hours outside of your cell,
that's not considered solitary confinement. And as you see in
Lelien's case, at the time when she was in the
restrictive housing unit, technically the policy said that women in
(20:52):
that unit had access to seven hours outside of their
cell every day. They're using a very strict definition of
what solitary confinement is that you're inside of your cell
for twenty two hours a day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Technically, the RHU is for people who the doc calls
non seriously mentally ill. These are people the doc knows
have mental illness but has decided can still withstand isolation.
People incarcerated in the RHU are supposed to get seven
(21:25):
hours outside of their cells on weekdays and have access
to some kind of therapeutic programming or so called reintegrative activities.
Speaker 7 (21:36):
It's not necessarily like doing yoga in the yard.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Matt Katz reports on Rikers for WNYC, New York's public
radio station.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Out of cell time could literally mean they're chained at
the ankles and potentially cuffed to a desk and they
have to stay there, but they're technically out of their cells.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
Particularly at Riker's Island.
Speaker 8 (22:01):
Out of cell time means they're just like on the
other side of their cell, locked to a chair.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
That's maybe not solitary confinement because you're not locked behind
bars anymore, but it feels like solitary environement because you're
also not interacting with anybody else and you're still restricted
in your movement.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Often minimum requirements like showering or a potential medical visit
are included in those seven hours of out of cell time.
Watchdogs have pushed back on these practices. There are also
reports that people in the RHU can still be locked
up for twenty three hours of the day. In fact,
(22:46):
a lawsuit filed after Layleen's death points out that Leyleen
herself often got fewer than two hours of out of
cell time daily. These little nuances allow the Apartment of
Correction to claim that the RHU is distinct. When we
reached out to the DC for this series, they declined
(23:09):
a formal interview, but sent an email with bullet point
details on Lealen's case. It's a lot of the lines
that the DC has been sticking to for years that
it would be inappropriate to consider the RHU solitary confinement
because of the access to special programming, that placement there
(23:31):
has nothing to do with gender, that inmates receive up
to seven hours a day outside their cell, that they
have access to medical care twenty four to seven. But
what looks like distinctions on paper between the RHU and
solitary confinement start to dissipate when you see how the
(23:52):
RHU functions in practice. In Kate's report for the Board
of Correction, she makes it clear that at the time
of Layleen's death and the Women's Gel at Rikers, these
two units were identical. Traditional solitary confinement and the RHU
were in the same physical place, and women house there
(24:15):
got the exact same out of cell time and the
same programming. At the end of the day, no matter
what you call it, this is a really dangerous setting.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a medical doctor. I
just have looked into the eyes of people who have
been held in solitary confinement, and people have been held
in solitary confinement decades ago, and I can see as
a human being that there is trauma that exists there.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
When we get back from the break, we'll see what
happened in this unit on the day Layleen died. On
May thirtieth, just over a week before she died, Leyleen
(25:12):
was transferred to cell number six in the Restrictive Housing
Unit or RHU. At Rikers officers housed her there after
she ran into trouble in other parts of the GEL,
but her seizure disorder made this a dangerous decision. Imagine this.
(25:33):
Her cell was twelve feet by seven feet. That's smaller
than the average American parking space. Inside there was a
small window, a ceiling light, a bed, two plastic storage
bends on top of one another meant to serve as
a table, a metal mirror, a toilet, and a sink.
(25:58):
Kate McMahon walked us through the routine outside Layleen's cell
on the day she died.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So on Friday, June seventh, there were six women who
were housed on the unit, spread out in various cells
around a day room.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Layleen cell door had a twenty inch by five inch
window that officers could look through. It's worth noting that
some cells in the unit had larger windows, meant to
make it easier for officers to observe those on suicide watch.
Despite Layleen's seizure condition, this is just one more precaution
(26:36):
that was not taken for her. While we can never
truly know what Layleen went through on the day she died,
we do have records of what transpired and what went wrong.
Kate and other investigators lean on a few primary sources
to piece together what happened to her. Crucial clues come
(26:58):
from the Department of correction logbook books information compiled from
interviews and video footage from Genetech, the company that made
some of Riker's security cameras. The clips have no sound
and show us limited views from the outside of layleen cell.
(27:21):
But seeing those moments before her death on camera is
hard to witness. It's also hard to hear described, so
take care as you listen to what happened. On the
morning of June seventh, Layleen will served breakfast at five
(27:45):
point fifteen am.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
They dropped meals off through a meal slot in the
doors of these segregation units.
Speaker 9 (27:53):
She then took a shower a little later.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
In order to do that in a segregation unit, a
officer muses you to the shower and back to yourself.
That it appears from the gene Tech footage that she
received her medication from our correctional health staff person.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
At about eight thirty Layleen was brought to the yard
for an hour of wregtime. She played basketball and had
a few conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Later in the midmorning, Leyleen went with an escort to
the clinic to discuss her hormone therapy with Correctional Health Services.
She was visiting Correctional Health for about forty minutes.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Officers escorted her back to her cell.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That was around eleven twenty in the morning, and that's
the last time you see her on gene Tech video
because she entered her cell and then she never.
Speaker 9 (28:48):
Came out again.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Staff was still responsible for checking on Leileen while in
her South. It's doc policy that people in segregation should
be observed at least once every fifteen minutes to confirm
signs of life.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Signs of life is sort of a vague term, and
I think, particularly given that many people who.
Speaker 9 (29:20):
Are segregated in a self spend quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Of time sleeping because they have nothing else to do
and it passes the time, and under those circumstances, searching
for signs of life should mean that you see some
rise and fall of somebody's chest, or the blanket moving,
or there's some other indication that someone is breathing.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
These checks are done by correction officers and observation aids.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
An observation aid is another person in custody who applies
for and is selected to provide suicide prevention and an
extra set of eyes on people in segregation units. Their
job is really essentially to walk around the unit observe
each person up to six times an hour, engage them,
(30:11):
and ensure that there are.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Signs of life Between the aids and the officers. It's
unclear whether anyone checking on Leileen had an understanding of
her seizure condition.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
There was no policy in place at the time for
officers on a unit to be aware of what someone's
medical diagnosis is on that unit unless the person elects
to tell them. In the case of Leileen, when she
was in a new admissions unit for transgender housing, she
informed the officer that she had a seizure disorder, but
(30:47):
the officers in the restrictive housing unit reported that they.
Speaker 10 (30:51):
Did not know.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
There's a really stark sentence here. People at rikers are
surveilled and given little privacy, but when it comes to
monitoring health conditions in a way that could save lives,
that scrutiny is often lost.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And this highlights a systemic tension between Correctional Health Services
and the Department of correction.
Speaker 9 (31:20):
There's really a firewall.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Between the two agencies when it comes to medical information.
Not relaying on medical information created an additional unsafe condition
for Leyleen.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
After returning from the health clinic and re entering her cell,
Layleen will starve lunch At a quarter to twelve.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Leyleen appear to want seconds, so at one point on
the video you see the observation aid actually pick up
a tray from another cell of someone who refused their
lunch and gave Leyleen a second.
Speaker 9 (31:53):
Helping of food.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Lunch that day was turkey, fried rice, greens, carrot and
celery salad, a banana, and whole wheat bread. It would
be her last meal.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
At around twelve oh one, the observation aid collected her
empty trees and her water cup from her meal slot.
The observation aide then refilled her water cup and put
it back in her meal slot at.
Speaker 9 (32:24):
Twelve oh two.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
This is actually the last point in time that we
can be sure that she was alive.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
After lunch, the observation aid continued her rounds checking on
Leileen at least every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The observation aid went past Leileen's cell for the last
time at twelve fifty and she paused for about twelve
seconds outside of the cell window.
Speaker 9 (32:59):
And that was notable because earlier in the day.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
When she was doing her rounds around cells and in
particular past Lalen's cell. She would stop for maybe a
second look in the window, but here it was notable
to me investigating just that she stopped for twelve seconds
to look inside.
Speaker 9 (33:18):
It signaled to me that maybe what she saw was unusual.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And then about thirty five minutes goes by where no
one walks by her.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Cell at all, more than twice as long as DLC
policy says should pass between rounds. It's now one twenty six,
almost an hour and a half since Leileen's water cup
was refilled, since the last point that we can be
sure she was alive.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
There's two Correctional Health Services clinicians from the mental health
unit who appear in the unit. And the first clinician
and she walks on the unit, she goes straight to
Lee leans self and she knocks on her door and
gets no response, and then she proceeds to knock.
Speaker 9 (34:08):
On the door for another two minutes.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And this is where, if you're watching the video, it
seems like something strange is happening. She's leaning on the glass,
she's peering in and then she puts some papers into
the meal slot. A few minutes after that, one of
the officers joins her next to the door, and they
stand outside of her door and talk.
Speaker 9 (34:31):
They seem to be talking about her and why they're
not getting her attention.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
At one point, the officer takes her keys out to
open the meal slot.
Speaker 9 (34:39):
She taps on the window.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
She's looking inside with her face pressed up against the window.
That time is the clearest indication on the video we
review that something is wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
After that, they walk the way in. According to Riker's
logbook records, an officer wrote shortly after that there was
nothing unusual to report.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
This is around one thirty in the afternoon, which is
notable because it's still quite a significant amount of time
before anyone actually enters herself.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
A minute later, one of the clinicians came back and
leaned on the glass to look inside Layleen's cell again.
Another officer joined her, tapping on the window some more.
The clinician walked away, but the officer lingered for another
fifteen seconds before walking away too Later, the officer would
(35:43):
say to investigators that Layleen looked like she was asleep
face down. Here's David senas the family's lawyer. Again.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
The reason that doesn't hold water is that they're trained
on confirming signs of life that's what the fifteen minute
checks are for. It's not just to look into the
cell and see that there is a human body located there.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
The officer returned for three more seconds and then recorded
the same message in the log book, nothing unusual to report.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
I suspect that that's why you see some images of
the officers in the cell block staring into her cell
for long periods of time, probably trying to see if
there were signs of life. But given that we now
know that there weren't, the question is if they didn't
see signs of life, why didn't they intervene right away?
(36:48):
And those questions were never answered and never will be.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Answered at and remember ley Luan's last cup of water
was that Now a third officer looked inside Layleen's window
for forty five seconds. Two others joined too, but they
all walked away without engaging Layleen. Records in the log
(37:15):
books say regular checks continue to happen throughout the afternoon,
but that's not the case.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
That's actually another forty one minutes after that before anyone
goes back to herself. So that's forty one minutes where
no one's observing her, which is in violation of the
segregation unit policy.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Forty one minutes. Let that sink in. It's the longest
stretch of time during this critical period in the afternoon
where no one checked on her cell, not correction officers,
not observation aids, not missions. In those forty one minutes,
(38:04):
Layleen was completely alone. It's now around two point thirty pm,
nearly two and a half hours since the last time
we know for sure that Layleen was alive. After a
group therapy session in the day room near Layleen's cell,
(38:27):
two officers check on her again.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
One of the officers had told us that she remembered
that Leileen had said earlier in the day could she
be brought out when the television came on. So at
this point the television goes on, the officer goes and
looks again in Leileen's cell window, and she stands here
for about three seconds and then walks away for about
(38:50):
two minutes. Later, the other officer walks over, stands there
for almost two minutes, knocking on the door, looking.
Speaker 9 (38:58):
Through the window.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Still nobody has walked inside, and at this.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Point she takes her keys out, indicating that she's thinking
about going inside the cell, although she doesn't at this point. Instead,
she just kind of opens the gates and the meal
slot closes it, and then the other officer rejoins her
caring handcuffs, which indicates to me that they were considering
going inside the cell. They knock on the door again
(39:28):
and they look inside the window, and then it's at
two point forty five they use the keys to open
her cell door for the first time, so that's the
first time her door has been opened since eleven twenty.
But they still even though they open the cell door,
they do not go in for several minutes.
Speaker 9 (39:47):
They stand at the threshold of the.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Door, talking to each other, laughing at one point.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Laughing. This video footage from outside of Layleen's cell would
later be released to the public by Lalen's family and
their lawyer. It's a moment that everyone who was closely
familiar with Layleen's story has likely seen. It's chilling and
(40:18):
hard to unsee. I first saw the clip embedded in
an article that had been posted on social media. All
I could do was stare at my phone and disbelief.
This was undoubtedly an emergency. How callous could you be
to take this young woman's unresponsive state so lightly. Here's
(40:44):
the family's lawyer, David Again.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
The first time I saw the footage I saw in
the Bronx District Attorney's office. They showed the video to
Lalan's family and to me, and it was certainly a
memorable event. What they were laughing at I don't know,
but obviously knowing that Layleen's dead body lay inside that cell,
(41:11):
it was really difficult for the family to see that
image because those were the people whose job it was
to keep her safe.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Amids their own laughter and conversation, you can see them
calling to Layleen, but they still did not go in. Instead,
they closed the door.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
At that moment, a captain appeared on the unit and
directs them to open the door again. At this point,
the officers reopen the door and they go inside the
cell for about nine seconds before coming back out.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It's two forty eight pm.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
This is when everyone's dimmy starts to change. People start
walking more quickly. Everyone has sort of an air of
grodnetas there's clearly something wrong. At this point, the captain
and the officer immediately walk over to the officer station.
They call for a medical emergency. They return to the
cell with a bag and a defibrillator, and then they
(42:20):
go inside her cell and they turn her body over.
This was what was reported to us after that. At
this point, when they turn her over, they discover her
faces purple and blue and she's likely dead. At this point,
the officers render some medical aid. At this point they
begin chest compressions. The captain one of the officers, use
(42:42):
the defibrillator. Other captains start to arrive based on the
radio call of the medical emergency that had gone out,
and then medical staff arrives on the unit at two
fifty five and takes over rendering the medical aid.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
In a report published by the bronx DA, the officers
described Leyleen as unresponsive, pulseless, and breathless. Her body was
cool to the touch.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
The EMS arrives the unit about a half hour later.
They go inside of the cell with their medical equipment.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Emergency personnel performed an hour of CPR on Leileen. She
was given six doses of epinephrine, a form of adrenaline,
and three doses of narcan, which is used for overdoses.
A defibrillator was never able to identify a pulse.
Speaker 9 (43:44):
And Leileen is pronounced dead at three forty five in
the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The following day. In auta performed by one of the
city's medical examiners found that she suffered a quote sudden
unexpected death in epilepsy due to or as a consequence
of mutation in CNA one H gene. The manner of
death is documented as quote natural. These words stand out
(44:24):
to me natural. Nothing to see here, nothing unusual to report.
This is what the system has to say about Leyleen's death,
that it's normal, expected. The usual alarm bell should have
(44:45):
been ringing hours before Leyleen's door was finally opened. Someone
should have helped her. Maybe the fact that they didn't
is normal at Rikers, But nothing about Layleen's death seems
natural to me. We'll be right back, Welcome back to
(45:24):
after lives.
Speaker 10 (45:27):
Incarcerated lives matter for people too. Just because I led
a certain life doesn't mean I'm not a human being.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
This is Ruby Verding. She was in the cell across
from Leyleen the day she died and witnessed the aftermath
at Rikers. We visited her at Taconic Correctional Facility, a
women's prison in Westchester County, where she's been incarcerated for
about a year and is due to be released soon.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
Well, then you guys designed her to be police.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Ruby was nineteen when she was first incarcerated. She's thirty
one now. I sat across from her at a square
table in a small room with fluorescent lights and old
TV and wall hangings with inspirational quotes and butterflies that
kind of made me feel like we were in a
classroom from the nineties. She seems shy at first, but
(46:27):
opened up quickly. So, how many times have you been
to rikers?
Speaker 10 (46:35):
Probably seven or eight. I think I picked up pretty
quickly my first bid. You know, I grew up not industries,
but I am from Manhattana inm is really like I'm
a quick learner.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, okay, straight smart Yeah. Ruby understands the gels in
her workings. She told us about the officers who worked
in the solitary unit where she and Leileen were house
She knew all about the different dorms and the women's gel,
the protocol for what happens after a fight breaks out.
(47:08):
She even knows the guy who paints the walls.
Speaker 10 (47:12):
There's a guy, a toll officer. He looks like Woody
from the sea. He's painting grew okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Ruby also knew Layleen. She told us about how isolated
Layleen felt while she was at Rikers.
Speaker 10 (47:29):
Oh, and I remember I had brought off the cookies
to the yard and she's like, you get through no commisary.
She's been here for months. She never saw talking about
your cookies. You never been the commissary, you know. I
think she felt very low.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Ruby was one of the last people to talk to
Laileen to know what she was thinking in the days
before her death. She told me that information inside the
gel around Layleen's death was unclear and inconsistent, and she
says that officers started rumors.
Speaker 10 (48:04):
I also remember that they were like, oh, that she
killed herself, and I think I just heard it around.
I think officers were saying it, and I'm like, it's
not true, because she was excited to get her hair done,
and you know, she didn't really have anything. So I
was like, I'm gonna get a shampoo condition to wash
your hair, and she said, oh, hold it, because I
was still going to be there next week, you could
give it to me. So if anybody was gonna kill herself,
(48:25):
they're not going to plan for next week and be
so excited to get her hair done.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
From the start, of this project. I've understood that Rikers
is a transphobic place, and that transphobia directly affected Lalen's
placement and solitary confinement or restrictive housing or whatever they
call it. But talking to Ruby, I got a sense
of how the staff judged Leileen personally. So how would
(48:58):
you describe lalen relationship with the officers.
Speaker 10 (49:03):
I remember one of day there was talking about her
and they're like, oh, she's laying there, have these big
titties and this dick. And I'm like, hmm, I was
just I didn't say nothing, but it's just you guys
work in jail. Yeah, this is your job. You know
what I'm saying. Like, it's not it's not like it's
the worst thing. It's not disgusting.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Ruby told us that officers would make Layleen cover up
her window if she was going to lay naked in
her bed. They wanted to block their only view of her,
their only way to know if she was safe. And
even though layleen Sel window wasn't obscured the day she died,
Ruby described an air of disregard from officers.
Speaker 10 (49:46):
And I remember the Ulcelvani man Hard and I went
and looked up and I don't think she's heard any movement,
but she was just like, oh, I kept walking. So
I'm just thinking these funny idiots. I'm not thinking she's dead.
And I know that if it was a different Also
that day, the minute she wasn't first responding, they went
and waited for the captain, they would have just opened
to sell because we're human beings.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Ruby's last time seeing Leileen was when officers ushered inmates
out of the solitary unit while the crime scene was established.
Speaker 10 (50:18):
They're like, don't look, don't look, just go down. But
I had to walk by herself. I've seen that she
was bloated. Her feet were purple, and I know that
doesn't happen after being dead for ten minutes. She was
in that room dead for hours.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
After any death at Rikers, the Department of Correction begins
their own preliminary investigation before other Senia agencies starts to
get involved. In the midst of this, an investigator approached
Ruby to get a statement about what happened.
Speaker 10 (50:51):
I didn't talk to them. Okay, curse him. Actually, I
just didn't trust they were going to get the true fied.
I feel like they would try to cover up for
the officers, and I knew the officers from.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Ruby didn't speak with investigators. She did tell people she
trusted about what she witnessed before and after Layleen's death,
her mother over the phone, and her partner, who was
in the same Rikers housing area. Ruby says that once
she started speaking about Leileen, she experienced retaliation from officers.
(51:28):
She was moved away from her partner, she was searched
more rigorously than before. Her commissary was taken away. One day,
when Layleen's lawyer visited to gather information, she says, officers
told him she'd refuse to speak, which she denies. So
(51:48):
you think there was a retaliation.
Speaker 10 (51:52):
Because you witnessed and I kept speaking about it.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Rikers is infamously a black box for information. Very little
gets in and almost nothing gets out. Pushing back on
this culture of silence is key to preventing situations like
Layleen's from happening again. Acknowledgement that sometimes, and even often,
(52:17):
a death in a gel is the fault of the
gel itself. It's something doctor Vinter's and Kate McMahon have
spent a lot of time working to eliminate.
Speaker 6 (52:29):
If you read a press release, from homeland security or
from a jail or prison. After somebody dies, they'll list
off all the health problems they had. And it's true
that the way mass incarceration works, people with a lot
of health problems who also disproportionately are people who are LGBTQI,
(52:50):
or who are black or brown. Those people are steered
into these places. But what we don't measure is the
inherent risk of incarceration.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I think any death that happens in a jail is
a jail attributable death.
Speaker 9 (53:07):
I don't think you can.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Classify any death in a jail as a natural death,
because it's an unnatural environment.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
There were attempts to deny that Rikers was at fault
for Layleen's death. People tried to keep the story quiet,
but the injustices of Layleen's case would be brought to
light because of the tireless work of her family, friends,
and activists. Layleen's name would become known far and wide. Grief, anger, heartbreak,
(53:41):
and the fact that so many people could see themselves
in her story would become a driving force in the
fight for change. That's next time on Afterlives, I.
Speaker 11 (53:53):
Saw four sentenced articles from The New York Post and
it just that at the time transgender inmate was found
that got the in the process of us beginning to
organized on behalf of Lali Blanka.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
That could be any one of us, any one of
my friends, you know what I mean. And it's something
that is constantly in the back of my mind. You
don't know the night that you go out that you
may not make it back.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
Having obtained the highest settlement the city has ever paid
in the case of a death in custody, that was
also a symbol that Lalien's life mattered and people needed
to be held accountable for it.
Speaker 12 (54:28):
And I'm the boys of my sister and I will
continue to fight for her. She is to fight for
her son, for you, but I'm in.
Speaker 9 (54:41):
It.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. You can
find this episode and future ones on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives of the production of iHeart Podcasts
(55:14):
and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with the School
of Humans. I'm your host and creator Raquel Willis. Dylan
Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer
is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Jess Krinchich,
(55:35):
story editing by Aaron Edwards and Julia Ferlain, fact checking
by Savannah Hugley. Our show art is by Makai Baldwin.
Score composed by Wisely Murray. Our production manager is Daisy Church.
Executive producers include me, Raquel Willis and Jay Brunson from
(55:58):
The Outspoken podcast at Work, Michael Alder June and Noel
Brown from iHeart Podcasts, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr and Elsie
Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company School
of Humans
After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The
Outspoken podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just
a heads Up, The following episode discusses transphobia, sexism, racism,
(00:24):
physical violence, police violence, sexual assault, and suicide. Take care
while listening. It's May twenty fourth, twenty nineteen, exactly two
weeks before Leileen Polanco's death. She returned to Rikers Island
(00:45):
after spending over a week at Elmhurst Hospital Psychiatric Prison
ward As Leileen waited in the main intake of the
women's jail, an assistant deputy Warden began an email thread
about where to house her. Kate McMahon investigated Layleen's death
(01:06):
on behalf of the Board of Correction, a watchdog agency.
Kate read these emails and seized them as further evidence
of the disorder Layleen experienced during her time at Rikers.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Her journey through the jails and the different housing years
are pretty chaotic. She's bouncing between different trenchgender housing units
that she's been a transgender new admissions area, So it's clear,
I think from following her journey through these different housing
areas and then being sent to the psychiatric border coming
back that they didn't really know what to do with her.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
After Layleen arrived back at the women's jail, the assistant
Deputy Warden emailed a request for her to be moved
to another facility because of her previous conflicts in the
jail's transgender housing units. Several correction offices were copied on
the email thread, but most of the correspondences between two people,
(02:06):
Assistant Deputy Warden Jessica Rodriguez and Captain Rosemary Ellerb. Rodriga
suggested that Leyleen be moved to general population in a
men's gail. Obviously, this would never be on the table
if Leyleen was a SIS woman. Captain Ellerb suggested instead
(02:31):
that Rodriguez fill out the paperwork to house Lealen in
protective custody at Rikers. We asked Robin Robinson, a former
social worker in Riker's LGBTQ plus affairs unit, why Llerb
would propose that.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I'll try to explain this best second, because even I
have an issue with understanding it completely. When they're having
an issue with a person in custody who has caused
harm to them in some way. It could be physical assault,
it could be related to gain violence. It could be
a sexual assault, right, So if there is no other
(03:10):
housing unit that would be safer for them, then they
would be placed in protective custody.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Robin thinks this actually would have been a workable option
for Leileen.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
I think it would be a better situation because you know,
in protective custody there are going to be other folks
in the unit. In some facilities, there are what we
are called unofficial LGDQ housing units, so a lot of
the folks were of the community, so that just made
the environment safer. So had that been the case, honestly
think she would still be alive.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But that's not what happened. This email thread would be
a deciding factor in Layleen's faith. A few key strokes
between these decision makers would send her somewhere that put
her life in danger. I'm Raquel Willis and this is
Afterlive episode four forty one minutes. Two weeks before Layleen's death,
(04:37):
Riker's officials were gathered on an email thread to decide
where in the jail complex to house her. After a
few ideas were floated, Assistant Deputy Warden Jessica Rodriguez replied
to the group saying that actually Layleen owed days in
solitary confinement. She was referring to a two and day's
(05:00):
sentence in solitary that Leyleen was assigned after her first
fight at Rikers but hadn't yet served. But Rodriguez couldn't
just put Layleen in solitary right away. Correctional health staff
had to approve the decision. Rodriguz wrote that a doctor said,
(05:21):
due to the subject inmates medical history, he would not
be able to authorize a cell housing placement for Leiyleen.
Another officer chimed in, we tried very hard to get
inmate cleared, but mental health just won't clear her. David
shanis Layleen's family's lawyer, says the conversation about Leileen and
(05:44):
solitary should have ended there.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Even under the jail's policy at the time, she was
medically ineligible for solitary confinement, both because of her serious
mental health diagnoses and because of her well documented epilepsy,
And that was really a no brainer in terms of
making someone ineligible for solitary confinement. Why Because in solitary confinement,
(06:13):
a person is locked in a box and away from
everyone else, and obviously, if a person has a seizure, disorder.
They can become hurt, they could become incapacitated, they can die,
and people won't be there to render aid.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Captain Ellerby jumped back into the thread with some urgency
and insisted they find housing for Leileen. That night, again
she brought up the idea of protective custody, and an
application for Layleen's placement was submitted with the argument that
she would be vulnerable in a general population unit. Officers
(06:55):
also said Layleen told them she didn't want to be
in general population, but the application was denied within hours.
A captain who coordinated placements and protective custody, said there
isn't any evidence to substantiate or validate this claim, and
that a fear of safety solely on an inmate's word
(07:18):
is insufficient for placements. At this point, the officers deciding
Layleen's fate are at a standstill. One officer asked the
unit in charge of protective custody where they think Layleen
should be housed. The back and forth doesn't end that night.
(07:43):
For five days, as they debated what to do, Layleen
was returned to the transgender housing unit new admission. This
was a group of cells surrounding a common room supposedly
designed to be square one for new entries into the unit.
So what Kate told us? This isn't an official housing
area and isn't subject to proper supervision. Plus Layleen was
(08:09):
the only one in there, not a safe situation for her.
Here's Kate again, a transgender new admissions area, which is
supposed to be an area you're in for a very
short amount of time, but she was there by herself
for up to five days. It's May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen,
(08:30):
ten days before Layleen's death, and something very strange happens.
Days earlier. One psychiatrist decided Layleen was in no condition
for solitary confinement. Officers worked off that assumption, looking for
other places to house Layleen, but then input from a
(08:54):
new mental health clinician appeared. We can't be certain why
another opinion was thought, but this clinician approved Layleen for
a type of solitary called the restrictive housing unit, or
the RHU. The officers just had to get one more
(09:14):
sign off, this time from a medical doctor. Here's lawyer
David Shanas Again.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
A medical doctor was asked, can this person be put
in solitary? In light of their seizure disorder, and they
answered yes to me, if anyone were going to be
held criminally accountable for l'ylan's death, that's the direction I
would have looked.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
The morning after this pretty baffling approval, Layleen was headed
to the RHU.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Certainly, some very hard questions needed to be asked about
how a doctor could have said that that was medically acceptable.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
The days of confusion over where to house Leyleen underscore
the violence that the carceral system can inflict on trans
women and people of color. Leyleen, like many in the system,
was reduced to a series of charts, approvals, and emails
(10:21):
and administrative task to get through instead of being treated
with humanity.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
We knew that Layleen was a trans woman of color
and that people like her are often getting the worst
treatment in an already horrible place, But was her transness
actually a cause of her death? It wasn't clear. From
the outset of this case. We saw basically all of
(10:49):
the emails, the various memos going back and forth about this,
and we found out that the answer was yes, it
absolutely was. Because the lack of of available housing for
trans inmates is what put pressure on these various Corrections
officials to find some place to warehouse her, which they
(11:10):
ultimately decided would be solitary confinement, and that ended up
being a death sentence for her.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
A housing decision is not just something to be filed
away among mountains of paperwork. It's a matter of life
and death, and that's especially true for trans people. Cecilia
Genteely experienced this firsthand. She's an activist and author who
(11:38):
we've heard from throughout the series. She's been incarcerated in
the past for sex work, and at one point when
she was at Rikers, the doc transferred her into the
custody of ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and because this
woman refused to be housed with her, ICE officers moved
(12:00):
her into solitary confinement too. Can you talk a little
bit about how that isolation, I mean, what that feels like,
maybe for folks who are unfamiliar.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
The fact that I was putt in isolation was terrible,
But the fact that I was put in isolation as
a result of my sisters not allowing me to be
with them, it's really sad. And then you have isolation
(12:38):
on itself, right, and what it means to be in
a room by yourself with your thoughts. And I have
had a couple of moments with suicidal ideation during my life.
(13:00):
There were not too many, but there were moments where
I was like, in a really bad moment in my
life and I had the ideation while in isolation in
the middle of Manhattan on Barrick Street, and I picture
(13:22):
the whole execution of my plan. Right. So that says
a lot about what isolation can do to a person, right.
It can really bring you to places where your life
(13:43):
becomes secondary, where dying could be the best choice. I
hope that, as hard as it is, in words, can
somehow explain what isolation feels like.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
This is what Leileen was up against. This is where
a doctor proved her to stay. There are health professionals
(14:34):
like doctor Homer Venters who feel that this should never
be a part of their obligations.
Speaker 6 (14:40):
When security staff say they decide they want to punish
somebody or put them in a solitary setting, they've declared
to the world that's their intent.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Doctor Venters worked at Rikers for eight years and has
served as the chief medical officer for all New York
City jails. The job in twenty seventeen, two years before
Leyleen's death, but has continued to advocate for better health
policies behind bars. Although correctional health services is technically independent
(15:14):
from the doc and officers at Rikers, health professionals there
still face immense pressure from the jail to fall in line.
Doctor Vinters told me about instances where doctors and medical
staff were verbally threatened by CEOs for trying to advocate
for incarcerated patients.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
For an a loane nurse or doctor or psychologist or
social order to say stop this is not a good
idea puts them at odds with a much more powerful
set of forces that they may stand up to. But
my experience is especially over time, as you work more
years in the correctional settings, part of your survival calculus
(15:57):
may be that you don't stand up in these settings.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
It's pressure like this that may have led a doctor
to clear Layleen for solitary Remember that email chain where
officers insisted that Leyleen owed days. One person said quote,
we tried very hard to get inmate cleared, but mental
health just won't clear her. But then suddenly she was cleared.
Speaker 6 (16:29):
We worked hard on this idea that it is not
the job of health staff to be part of the
punishment of people. The effectiveness of health staff is really
an important stamp of approval. The World Medical Association and
other ethics organizations have long identified this as a problem.
Our patients don't trust us, and they think that we're
just part of the system that's harming them, and so
(16:51):
they won't trust us with other important health issues.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Later on, while working at Rikers, doctor Venter's witness the
effects of solitary confinement up close. His office was right
next door to a solitary unit. One of the things
that surprised me most was descriptions of how these units sound.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
The office I had was in a little trailer on
the edge of Riker's Island, and it was next to
the bing which was the big solitary unit at OBCC.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's one of the men's tales.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
We would hear all day long, the yells and screams
of people who are in those five stories of solitary confinement.
This juxtaposition of this old, soon to be washed out
trailer versus this big, sturdy edifice, it gave a good
sense of where the priorities were for the system.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Doctor Venters made it a point to study the harmful
effects of solitary confinement.
Speaker 6 (18:01):
These are profoundly dehumanizing settings. They're dehumanizing by design, the
way they're structured, the way they're run. So the most
acute is a solitary confinement unit where you have staff
that are being told or asked to do things that
are directly harmful to people.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
In one study, doctor Vinters and a team of other
doctors and health professionals analyze a quarter of a million
GEL admissions. They found that people who had been punished
by solitary had an approximately seven times higher likelihood of
self harm.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
So yes, I think those circumstances that's torture.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
With the reputation that solitary confinement has, the doc has
made it a point to say that Laleen's placement and
the Restrictive Housing Unit RHU meant that she wasn't officially
in solitary confinement. Our AGU is essentially a rebranding of
solitary confinement. Similar euphemisms are increasingly common.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
Often correctional settings will say we don't do solitary confinement,
but if you go into jails and prisons, you'll often
find that there are new versions with different names. And
what's pretty maddening is that these new versions of solitary
might have a health label. So the greatest example of
(19:35):
this is the mental health watch cell, where a person
has a mental health crisis and they are placed into
a cell, locked cell by themselves, often without any clothes
except for a suicide smock, and they might be there
for days or weeks or months, and that is solitary confinement.
But it's another version of solitary.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
You'll see names like segregated housing, isolation room confinement, or
behavior treatment units. At rikers, it's called punitive segregation. And
then there's the RHU where Leyleen was sent. In Kate
McMahon's investigation of Leyleen's death, she makes it clear that
(20:22):
the RHU is solitary in everything but name.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
There is a lot of semantic arguing around the term
solitary confinement. There are jail experts who will say that
if you have more than two hours outside of your cell,
that's not considered solitary confinement. And as you see in
Lelien's case, at the time when she was in the
restrictive housing unit, technically the policy said that women in
(20:52):
that unit had access to seven hours outside of their
cell every day. They're using a very strict definition of
what solitary confinement is that you're inside of your cell
for twenty two hours a day.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Technically, the RHU is for people who the doc calls
non seriously mentally ill. These are people the doc knows
have mental illness but has decided can still withstand isolation.
People incarcerated in the RHU are supposed to get seven
(21:25):
hours outside of their cells on weekdays and have access
to some kind of therapeutic programming or so called reintegrative activities.
Speaker 7 (21:36):
It's not necessarily like doing yoga in the yard.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Matt Katz reports on Rikers for WNYC, New York's public
radio station.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
Out of cell time could literally mean they're chained at
the ankles and potentially cuffed to a desk and they
have to stay there, but they're technically out of their cells.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
Particularly at Riker's Island.
Speaker 8 (22:01):
Out of cell time means they're just like on the
other side of their cell, locked to a chair.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
That's maybe not solitary confinement because you're not locked behind
bars anymore, but it feels like solitary environement because you're
also not interacting with anybody else and you're still restricted
in your movement.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Often minimum requirements like showering or a potential medical visit
are included in those seven hours of out of cell time.
Watchdogs have pushed back on these practices. There are also
reports that people in the RHU can still be locked
up for twenty three hours of the day. In fact,
(22:46):
a lawsuit filed after Layleen's death points out that Leyleen
herself often got fewer than two hours of out of
cell time daily. These little nuances allow the Apartment of
Correction to claim that the RHU is distinct. When we
reached out to the DC for this series, they declined
(23:09):
a formal interview, but sent an email with bullet point
details on Lealen's case. It's a lot of the lines
that the DC has been sticking to for years that
it would be inappropriate to consider the RHU solitary confinement
because of the access to special programming, that placement there
(23:31):
has nothing to do with gender, that inmates receive up
to seven hours a day outside their cell, that they
have access to medical care twenty four to seven. But
what looks like distinctions on paper between the RHU and
solitary confinement start to dissipate when you see how the
(23:52):
RHU functions in practice. In Kate's report for the Board
of Correction, she makes it clear that at the time
of Layleen's death and the Women's Gel at Rikers, these
two units were identical. Traditional solitary confinement and the RHU
were in the same physical place, and women house there
(24:15):
got the exact same out of cell time and the
same programming. At the end of the day, no matter
what you call it, this is a really dangerous setting.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a medical doctor. I
just have looked into the eyes of people who have
been held in solitary confinement, and people have been held
in solitary confinement decades ago, and I can see as
a human being that there is trauma that exists there.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
When we get back from the break, we'll see what
happened in this unit on the day Layleen died. On
May thirtieth, just over a week before she died, Leyleen
(25:12):
was transferred to cell number six in the Restrictive Housing
Unit or RHU. At Rikers officers housed her there after
she ran into trouble in other parts of the GEL,
but her seizure disorder made this a dangerous decision. Imagine this.
(25:33):
Her cell was twelve feet by seven feet. That's smaller
than the average American parking space. Inside there was a
small window, a ceiling light, a bed, two plastic storage
bends on top of one another meant to serve as
a table, a metal mirror, a toilet, and a sink.
(25:58):
Kate McMahon walked us through the routine outside Layleen's cell
on the day she died.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So on Friday, June seventh, there were six women who
were housed on the unit, spread out in various cells
around a day room.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Layleen cell door had a twenty inch by five inch
window that officers could look through. It's worth noting that
some cells in the unit had larger windows, meant to
make it easier for officers to observe those on suicide watch.
Despite Layleen's seizure condition, this is just one more precaution
(26:36):
that was not taken for her. While we can never
truly know what Layleen went through on the day she died,
we do have records of what transpired and what went wrong.
Kate and other investigators lean on a few primary sources
to piece together what happened to her. Crucial clues come
(26:58):
from the Department of correction logbook books information compiled from
interviews and video footage from Genetech, the company that made
some of Riker's security cameras. The clips have no sound
and show us limited views from the outside of layleen cell.
(27:21):
But seeing those moments before her death on camera is
hard to witness. It's also hard to hear described, so
take care as you listen to what happened. On the
morning of June seventh, Layleen will served breakfast at five
(27:45):
point fifteen am.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
They dropped meals off through a meal slot in the
doors of these segregation units.
Speaker 9 (27:53):
She then took a shower a little later.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
In order to do that in a segregation unit, a
officer muses you to the shower and back to yourself.
That it appears from the gene Tech footage that she
received her medication from our correctional health staff person.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
At about eight thirty Layleen was brought to the yard
for an hour of wregtime. She played basketball and had
a few conversations.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Later in the midmorning, Leyleen went with an escort to
the clinic to discuss her hormone therapy with Correctional Health Services.
She was visiting Correctional Health for about forty minutes.
Speaker 9 (28:36):
Officers escorted her back to her cell.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That was around eleven twenty in the morning, and that's
the last time you see her on gene Tech video
because she entered her cell and then she never.
Speaker 9 (28:48):
Came out again.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Staff was still responsible for checking on Leileen while in
her South. It's doc policy that people in segregation should
be observed at least once every fifteen minutes to confirm
signs of life.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Signs of life is sort of a vague term, and
I think, particularly given that many people who.
Speaker 9 (29:20):
Are segregated in a self spend quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
Of time sleeping because they have nothing else to do
and it passes the time, and under those circumstances, searching
for signs of life should mean that you see some
rise and fall of somebody's chest, or the blanket moving,
or there's some other indication that someone is breathing.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
These checks are done by correction officers and observation aids.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
An observation aid is another person in custody who applies
for and is selected to provide suicide prevention and an
extra set of eyes on people in segregation units. Their
job is really essentially to walk around the unit observe
each person up to six times an hour, engage them,
(30:11):
and ensure that there are.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Signs of life Between the aids and the officers. It's
unclear whether anyone checking on Leileen had an understanding of
her seizure condition.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
There was no policy in place at the time for
officers on a unit to be aware of what someone's
medical diagnosis is on that unit unless the person elects
to tell them. In the case of Leileen, when she
was in a new admissions unit for transgender housing, she
informed the officer that she had a seizure disorder, but
(30:47):
the officers in the restrictive housing unit reported that they.
Speaker 10 (30:51):
Did not know.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
There's a really stark sentence here. People at rikers are
surveilled and given little privacy, but when it comes to
monitoring health conditions in a way that could save lives,
that scrutiny is often lost.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And this highlights a systemic tension between Correctional Health Services
and the Department of correction.
Speaker 9 (31:20):
There's really a firewall.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Between the two agencies when it comes to medical information.
Not relaying on medical information created an additional unsafe condition
for Leyleen.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
After returning from the health clinic and re entering her cell,
Layleen will starve lunch At a quarter to twelve.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Leyleen appear to want seconds, so at one point on
the video you see the observation aid actually pick up
a tray from another cell of someone who refused their
lunch and gave Leyleen a second.
Speaker 9 (31:53):
Helping of food.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Lunch that day was turkey, fried rice, greens, carrot and
celery salad, a banana, and whole wheat bread. It would
be her last meal.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
At around twelve oh one, the observation aid collected her
empty trees and her water cup from her meal slot.
The observation aide then refilled her water cup and put
it back in her meal slot at.
Speaker 9 (32:24):
Twelve oh two.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
This is actually the last point in time that we
can be sure that she was alive.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
After lunch, the observation aid continued her rounds checking on
Leileen at least every fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
The observation aid went past Leileen's cell for the last
time at twelve fifty and she paused for about twelve
seconds outside of the cell window.
Speaker 9 (32:59):
And that was notable because earlier in the day.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
When she was doing her rounds around cells and in
particular past Lalen's cell. She would stop for maybe a
second look in the window, but here it was notable
to me investigating just that she stopped for twelve seconds
to look inside.
Speaker 9 (33:18):
It signaled to me that maybe what she saw was unusual.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
And then about thirty five minutes goes by where no
one walks by her.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Cell at all, more than twice as long as DLC
policy says should pass between rounds. It's now one twenty six,
almost an hour and a half since Leileen's water cup
was refilled, since the last point that we can be
sure she was alive.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
There's two Correctional Health Services clinicians from the mental health
unit who appear in the unit. And the first clinician
and she walks on the unit, she goes straight to
Lee leans self and she knocks on her door and
gets no response, and then she proceeds to knock.
Speaker 9 (34:08):
On the door for another two minutes.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And this is where, if you're watching the video, it
seems like something strange is happening. She's leaning on the glass,
she's peering in and then she puts some papers into
the meal slot. A few minutes after that, one of
the officers joins her next to the door, and they
stand outside of her door and talk.
Speaker 9 (34:31):
They seem to be talking about her and why they're
not getting her attention.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
At one point, the officer takes her keys out to
open the meal slot.
Speaker 9 (34:39):
She taps on the window.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
She's looking inside with her face pressed up against the window.
That time is the clearest indication on the video we
review that something is wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
After that, they walk the way in. According to Riker's
logbook records, an officer wrote shortly after that there was
nothing unusual to report.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
This is around one thirty in the afternoon, which is
notable because it's still quite a significant amount of time
before anyone actually enters herself.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
A minute later, one of the clinicians came back and
leaned on the glass to look inside Layleen's cell again.
Another officer joined her, tapping on the window some more.
The clinician walked away, but the officer lingered for another
fifteen seconds before walking away too Later, the officer would
(35:43):
say to investigators that Layleen looked like she was asleep
face down. Here's David senas the family's lawyer. Again.
Speaker 4 (35:58):
The reason that doesn't hold water is that they're trained
on confirming signs of life that's what the fifteen minute
checks are for. It's not just to look into the
cell and see that there is a human body located there.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
The officer returned for three more seconds and then recorded
the same message in the log book, nothing unusual to report.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
I suspect that that's why you see some images of
the officers in the cell block staring into her cell
for long periods of time, probably trying to see if
there were signs of life. But given that we now
know that there weren't, the question is if they didn't
see signs of life, why didn't they intervene right away?
(36:48):
And those questions were never answered and never will be.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Answered at and remember ley Luan's last cup of water
was that Now a third officer looked inside Layleen's window
for forty five seconds. Two others joined too, but they
all walked away without engaging Layleen. Records in the log
(37:15):
books say regular checks continue to happen throughout the afternoon,
but that's not the case.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
That's actually another forty one minutes after that before anyone
goes back to herself. So that's forty one minutes where
no one's observing her, which is in violation of the
segregation unit policy.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Forty one minutes. Let that sink in. It's the longest
stretch of time during this critical period in the afternoon
where no one checked on her cell, not correction officers,
not observation aids, not missions. In those forty one minutes,
(38:04):
Layleen was completely alone. It's now around two point thirty pm,
nearly two and a half hours since the last time
we know for sure that Layleen was alive. After a
group therapy session in the day room near Layleen's cell,
(38:27):
two officers check on her again.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
One of the officers had told us that she remembered
that Leileen had said earlier in the day could she
be brought out when the television came on. So at
this point the television goes on, the officer goes and
looks again in Leileen's cell window, and she stands here
for about three seconds and then walks away for about
(38:50):
two minutes. Later, the other officer walks over, stands there
for almost two minutes, knocking on the door, looking.
Speaker 9 (38:58):
Through the window.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Still nobody has walked inside, and at this.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Point she takes her keys out, indicating that she's thinking
about going inside the cell, although she doesn't at this point. Instead,
she just kind of opens the gates and the meal
slot closes it, and then the other officer rejoins her
caring handcuffs, which indicates to me that they were considering
going inside the cell. They knock on the door again
(39:28):
and they look inside the window, and then it's at
two point forty five they use the keys to open
her cell door for the first time, so that's the
first time her door has been opened since eleven twenty.
But they still even though they open the cell door,
they do not go in for several minutes.
Speaker 9 (39:47):
They stand at the threshold of the.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Door, talking to each other, laughing at one point.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Laughing. This video footage from outside of Layleen's cell would
later be released to the public by Lalen's family and
their lawyer. It's a moment that everyone who was closely
familiar with Layleen's story has likely seen. It's chilling and
(40:18):
hard to unsee. I first saw the clip embedded in
an article that had been posted on social media. All
I could do was stare at my phone and disbelief.
This was undoubtedly an emergency. How callous could you be
to take this young woman's unresponsive state so lightly. Here's
(40:44):
the family's lawyer, David Again.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
The first time I saw the footage I saw in
the Bronx District Attorney's office. They showed the video to
Lalan's family and to me, and it was certainly a
memorable event. What they were laughing at I don't know,
but obviously knowing that Layleen's dead body lay inside that cell,
(41:11):
it was really difficult for the family to see that
image because those were the people whose job it was
to keep her safe.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Amids their own laughter and conversation, you can see them
calling to Layleen, but they still did not go in. Instead,
they closed the door.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
At that moment, a captain appeared on the unit and
directs them to open the door again. At this point,
the officers reopen the door and they go inside the
cell for about nine seconds before coming back out.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
It's two forty eight pm.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
This is when everyone's dimmy starts to change. People start
walking more quickly. Everyone has sort of an air of
grodnetas there's clearly something wrong. At this point, the captain
and the officer immediately walk over to the officer station.
They call for a medical emergency. They return to the
cell with a bag and a defibrillator, and then they
(42:20):
go inside her cell and they turn her body over.
This was what was reported to us after that. At
this point, when they turn her over, they discover her
faces purple and blue and she's likely dead. At this point,
the officers render some medical aid. At this point they
begin chest compressions. The captain one of the officers, use
(42:42):
the defibrillator. Other captains start to arrive based on the
radio call of the medical emergency that had gone out,
and then medical staff arrives on the unit at two
fifty five and takes over rendering the medical aid.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
In a report published by the bronx DA, the officers
described Leyleen as unresponsive, pulseless, and breathless. Her body was
cool to the touch.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
The EMS arrives the unit about a half hour later.
They go inside of the cell with their medical equipment.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Emergency personnel performed an hour of CPR on Leileen. She
was given six doses of epinephrine, a form of adrenaline,
and three doses of narcan, which is used for overdoses.
A defibrillator was never able to identify a pulse.
Speaker 9 (43:44):
And Leileen is pronounced dead at three forty five in
the afternoon.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
The following day. In auta performed by one of the
city's medical examiners found that she suffered a quote sudden
unexpected death in epilepsy due to or as a consequence
of mutation in CNA one H gene. The manner of
death is documented as quote natural. These words stand out
(44:24):
to me natural. Nothing to see here, nothing unusual to report.
This is what the system has to say about Leyleen's death,
that it's normal, expected. The usual alarm bell should have
(44:45):
been ringing hours before Leyleen's door was finally opened. Someone
should have helped her. Maybe the fact that they didn't
is normal at Rikers, But nothing about Layleen's death seems
natural to me. We'll be right back, Welcome back to
(45:24):
after lives.
Speaker 10 (45:27):
Incarcerated lives matter for people too. Just because I led
a certain life doesn't mean I'm not a human being.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
This is Ruby Verding. She was in the cell across
from Leyleen the day she died and witnessed the aftermath
at Rikers. We visited her at Taconic Correctional Facility, a
women's prison in Westchester County, where she's been incarcerated for
about a year and is due to be released soon.
Speaker 6 (45:58):
Well, then you guys designed her to be police.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
Ruby was nineteen when she was first incarcerated. She's thirty
one now. I sat across from her at a square
table in a small room with fluorescent lights and old
TV and wall hangings with inspirational quotes and butterflies that
kind of made me feel like we were in a
classroom from the nineties. She seems shy at first, but
(46:27):
opened up quickly. So, how many times have you been
to rikers?
Speaker 10 (46:35):
Probably seven or eight. I think I picked up pretty
quickly my first bid. You know, I grew up not industries,
but I am from Manhattana inm is really like I'm
a quick learner.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Yeah, okay, straight smart Yeah. Ruby understands the gels in
her workings. She told us about the officers who worked
in the solitary unit where she and Leileen were house
She knew all about the different dorms and the women's gel,
the protocol for what happens after a fight breaks out.
(47:08):
She even knows the guy who paints the walls.
Speaker 10 (47:12):
There's a guy, a toll officer. He looks like Woody
from the sea. He's painting grew okay.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Ruby also knew Layleen. She told us about how isolated
Layleen felt while she was at Rikers.
Speaker 10 (47:29):
Oh, and I remember I had brought off the cookies
to the yard and she's like, you get through no commisary.
She's been here for months. She never saw talking about
your cookies. You never been the commissary, you know. I
think she felt very low.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Ruby was one of the last people to talk to
Laileen to know what she was thinking in the days
before her death. She told me that information inside the
gel around Layleen's death was unclear and inconsistent, and she
says that officers started rumors.
Speaker 10 (48:04):
I also remember that they were like, oh, that she
killed herself, and I think I just heard it around.
I think officers were saying it, and I'm like, it's
not true, because she was excited to get her hair done,
and you know, she didn't really have anything. So I
was like, I'm gonna get a shampoo condition to wash
your hair, and she said, oh, hold it, because I
was still going to be there next week, you could
give it to me. So if anybody was gonna kill herself,
(48:25):
they're not going to plan for next week and be
so excited to get her hair done.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
From the start, of this project. I've understood that Rikers
is a transphobic place, and that transphobia directly affected Lalen's
placement and solitary confinement or restrictive housing or whatever they
call it. But talking to Ruby, I got a sense
of how the staff judged Leileen personally. So how would
(48:58):
you describe lalen relationship with the officers.
Speaker 10 (49:03):
I remember one of day there was talking about her
and they're like, oh, she's laying there, have these big
titties and this dick. And I'm like, hmm, I was
just I didn't say nothing, but it's just you guys
work in jail. Yeah, this is your job. You know
what I'm saying. Like, it's not it's not like it's
the worst thing. It's not disgusting.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
Ruby told us that officers would make Layleen cover up
her window if she was going to lay naked in
her bed. They wanted to block their only view of her,
their only way to know if she was safe. And
even though layleen Sel window wasn't obscured the day she died,
Ruby described an air of disregard from officers.
Speaker 10 (49:46):
And I remember the Ulcelvani man Hard and I went
and looked up and I don't think she's heard any movement,
but she was just like, oh, I kept walking. So
I'm just thinking these funny idiots. I'm not thinking she's dead.
And I know that if it was a different Also
that day, the minute she wasn't first responding, they went
and waited for the captain, they would have just opened
to sell because we're human beings.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Ruby's last time seeing Leileen was when officers ushered inmates
out of the solitary unit while the crime scene was established.
Speaker 10 (50:18):
They're like, don't look, don't look, just go down. But
I had to walk by herself. I've seen that she
was bloated. Her feet were purple, and I know that
doesn't happen after being dead for ten minutes. She was
in that room dead for hours.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
After any death at Rikers, the Department of Correction begins
their own preliminary investigation before other Senia agencies starts to
get involved. In the midst of this, an investigator approached
Ruby to get a statement about what happened.
Speaker 10 (50:51):
I didn't talk to them. Okay, curse him. Actually, I
just didn't trust they were going to get the true fied.
I feel like they would try to cover up for
the officers, and I knew the officers from.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Ruby didn't speak with investigators. She did tell people she
trusted about what she witnessed before and after Layleen's death,
her mother over the phone, and her partner, who was
in the same Rikers housing area. Ruby says that once
she started speaking about Leileen, she experienced retaliation from officers.
(51:28):
She was moved away from her partner, she was searched
more rigorously than before. Her commissary was taken away. One day,
when Layleen's lawyer visited to gather information, she says, officers
told him she'd refuse to speak, which she denies. So
(51:48):
you think there was a retaliation.
Speaker 10 (51:52):
Because you witnessed and I kept speaking about it.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
Rikers is infamously a black box for information. Very little
gets in and almost nothing gets out. Pushing back on
this culture of silence is key to preventing situations like
Layleen's from happening again. Acknowledgement that sometimes, and even often,
(52:17):
a death in a gel is the fault of the
gel itself. It's something doctor Vinter's and Kate McMahon have
spent a lot of time working to eliminate.
Speaker 6 (52:29):
If you read a press release, from homeland security or
from a jail or prison. After somebody dies, they'll list
off all the health problems they had. And it's true
that the way mass incarceration works, people with a lot
of health problems who also disproportionately are people who are LGBTQI,
(52:50):
or who are black or brown. Those people are steered
into these places. But what we don't measure is the
inherent risk of incarceration.
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I think any death that happens in a jail is
a jail attributable death.
Speaker 9 (53:07):
I don't think you can.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Classify any death in a jail as a natural death,
because it's an unnatural environment.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
There were attempts to deny that Rikers was at fault
for Layleen's death. People tried to keep the story quiet,
but the injustices of Layleen's case would be brought to
light because of the tireless work of her family, friends,
and activists. Layleen's name would become known far and wide. Grief, anger, heartbreak,
(53:41):
and the fact that so many people could see themselves
in her story would become a driving force in the
fight for change. That's next time on Afterlives, I.
Speaker 11 (53:53):
Saw four sentenced articles from The New York Post and
it just that at the time transgender inmate was found
that got the in the process of us beginning to
organized on behalf of Lali Blanka.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
That could be any one of us, any one of
my friends, you know what I mean. And it's something
that is constantly in the back of my mind. You
don't know the night that you go out that you
may not make it back.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
Having obtained the highest settlement the city has ever paid
in the case of a death in custody, that was
also a symbol that Lalien's life mattered and people needed
to be held accountable for it.
Speaker 12 (54:28):
And I'm the boys of my sister and I will
continue to fight for her. She is to fight for
her son, for you, but I'm in.
Speaker 9 (54:41):
It.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. You can
find this episode and future ones on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives of the production of iHeart Podcasts
(55:14):
and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with the School
of Humans. I'm your host and creator Raquel Willis. Dylan
Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer
is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Jess Krinchich,
(55:35):
story editing by Aaron Edwards and Julia Ferlain, fact checking
by Savannah Hugley. Our show art is by Makai Baldwin.
Score composed by Wisely Murray. Our production manager is Daisy Church.
Executive producers include me, Raquel Willis and Jay Brunson from
(55:58):
The Outspoken podcast at Work, Michael Alder June and Noel
Brown from iHeart Podcasts, Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr and Elsie
Crowley from School of Humans and The Cats Company School
of Humans
Host
Raquel Willis
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