AUSTIN — Melissa Shearer spends her days working with mentally ill Texans caught up in the criminal justice system — 90 percent of whom received care through publicly funded community mental health centers. But Shearer, director of Travis County’s Mental Health Public Defender Office, told lawmakers Wednesday that it’s incredibly difficult to get information about […]
Alex Stuckey / Staff writer
Alex Stuckey is an investigative reporter for the Houston Landing. She is a 2017 Pulitzer Prize and 2022 Livingston Award winner. In 2022, she received the Charles E. Green Award for Star Reporter of the Year while working at the Houston Chronicle. Since graduating college in 2012, journalism has taken her to five different states, where she's covered a nuclear research facility, the Missouri Legislature, the mishandling of sexual assault reports at colleges and universities and even NASA. Her reporting throughout the years has put two people in prison, resulted in federal investigations at higher education institutions and overhauled broken policies at the state and local level. She loves falling down information rabbit holes, playing in spreadsheets and listening to Gilmore Girls on repeat at work. When she's off the clock, you can usually find her playing with her dogs, Waffle and Moby, curled up on the couch with a good book or on her yoga mat.
Posted inInvestigations
Lina Hidalgo pledges funds for jail program, citing investigation by Houston Landing
In the months leading up to Rory Ward’s death in the Harris County Jail in 2021, the Houston native waited for an evaluation that would have determined his capability to understand and participate in his legal case. And if he couldn’t – if he was found incompetent to stand trial – Ward could have entered […]
Posted inInvestigations
‘We need help!’: Mothers beg Texas jail commission to address deaths in Harris County Jail
AUSTIN – It’s been 323 days since Jacilet Griffin-Lee’s son, Evan, died in the custody of the Harris County Jail, but her ears still ring at night with the sounds of Evan’s last words. “Momma, get me out of here!” he pleaded. Evan Lee told her he thought he was going to die in the […]
Posted inInvestigations
Search our data: 53 inmates with mental concerns died in Houston-area jails over the past decade
This post was updated March 6, 2023 with new information as autopsies have become available. The Houston Landing examined thousands of public records to determine how many people who died from homicides, suicides and other unnatural causes in the custody of county and municipal jails across the greater Houston area over the last decade had […]
Posted inInvestigations
Texans with mental illnesses are dying in Houston-area jails. They didn’t need to be there.
This story is the first in a broader series, “Deadly Detention,” investigating jails across Texas. After hours of administering state testing for her Houston area middle school students, Rowena Ward glanced at the phone silenced in her desk drawer to find dozens of missed calls from unknown numbers. Her first thought was one of relief: […]