The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "jail death" ...
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Bad to the Bone
When four executives of a medical-device company called Synthes went to jail for illegally marketing a bone cement—five patients had died after it was injected into their spines—Mina Kimes knew there had to be a compelling saga behind a case that had generated little coverage beyond local news articles. So she began digging, first with FOIA requests for never-before-published government documents, and then assembling hundreds of pages of court transcripts and internal company e-mails and reports. She used that foundation to begin the harder challenge: persuading Synthes employees, many of them terrified by the criminal case and the company’s intimidating chairman, to talk to her. With six months of grueling, old-fashioned reporting, Kimes succeeded, and “Bad to the Bone” is the masterful result. Not only did she persuade more than 20 current and former company employees to speak, but she also revealed a story whose disturbing breadth far exceeded the case presented in court. Her tour de force reporting raises profound new questions about the culpability of a key figure who wasn’t charged: Hansjörg Wyss, the reclusive and controlling Swiss founder and chairman—one of the richest people in the world—who made crucial decisions about how to sell the bone cement. This is a classic tale of corporate malfeasance: Warned by the government not to sell its bone cement for use in the spine, Synthes ignored the admonition despite clear evidence of lethal danger—a pig had died within seconds when the cement was tested on it—and encouraged surgeons to use the cement on people, five of whom died soon afterward. But “Bad to the Bone” isn’t just an exposé. It opens a window into a broader issue: how the medical system actually runs. Readers see how salespeople with no medical training advise surgeons—inside the OR during operations—on how to use their devices. They experience the tale of one surgeon who continues using the cement even after two of his patients died. Oh, and what sort of justice does Synthes itself receive? Wyss sells it, for $20 billion, to health care giant Johnson & Johnson, which praises Synthes’s “culture” and “values.” Corporate crime. Death on the operating room table. Secret e-mails. Surgeons on the edge. An imperious multibillionaire CEO. It’s a mesmerizing article, and Kimes’s reporting takes readers on a deeply unsettling journey that ensures they’ll never look at the medical system the same way again.
Tags: Medical devices; bone cement; Synthes
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What Happened to Edie?
Edwina King's death was ruled a suicide by the very law enforcement agents she was investigating, regarding allegations that women in the Delaware County Jail were being raped and sexually abused. Edwina went missing the very day she was supposed to meet a Tulsa attorney to discuss a possible civil rights lawsuit on behalf of female inmates. Two weeks later, her body was found hanged in a horse tack barn on her own property, not more than 200 miles from her trailer home.
Tags: Suicide; Edwina King; Tulsa World; Trailer Home; Rape; Sexual Abuse
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"Under the Influence"
Dallas County has the "third-highest rate" of alcohol-related driving deaths. Reporters for the Dallas Morning News revealed that about "40 percent" of those who are sentenced for "intoxication manslaughter" are given probation instead of serving jail time to ensure treatment. The people of Dallas do not always agree.
Tags: DWI; manslaughter; drunk driving; probation; Dallas; Texas Department of Public Safety; Lexis Nexis
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"Prison Predator"
Overcrowding in California's 33 prisons has led to inmate violence, death and an alarming lack of accountability among prisons workers. In the past year, Lancaster state prison has seen two deaths as a result of inmate violence. In both cases, officials have keep quiet. A federal court ruling has asked California prison officials to relieve the overcrowding by releasing 40,000 inmates, though the ruling has been met by resistance by the governor and other politicians.
Tags: Lancaster; California prisons; inmate violence; jail violence; Greg Thomas; Cayenne Byrd; California Department of Corrections
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Collision Course
The Times explores a broken legal system in Louisiana that allows DWI offenders to get off on minimal charges which ultimately resulted in the death of 15-year-old Adam Klingensmith at the wheel of a repeat DWI offender.
Tags: Louisiana; intoxicated; influence; alcohol; drugs; legal; death; Jimmy Ray White; Adam Klingensmith; convictions; lesser charge; police; jail time; reduced; arrests; judges; ineffective; drugs;
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Botched Sting
This story exposed how local Florida police cost a young woman her life by manipulating her into working an undercover sting, then botching the operation. Rachel Hoffman was a typical American college student who was also twice arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Scared and facing jail time, Rachel agreed to be a police informant. Police told here that no charges would be filed, that prosecutors would never know and that they would protect her. Only after her death, and following this investigation, did the police admit that their recruitment of Rachel Hoffman violated their own policies.
Tags: undercover police work; recuritment; police informant; drugs; drug dealers; wrongful death
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Nobody's Fault
"The intersection of our mental health and criminal justice systems as seen through the death of one mentally ill man in the county jail."
Tags: treatment; Humboldt State; privacy protection; superior court; suicide;
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Death by Detention
Boubacar Bah slipped into a coma at an immigration jail in New Jersey after hitting his head while in custody and then shackled in a disciplinary cell for 13 hours.
Tags: Central Falls; Rhode Island; customs enforcement; skull fracture; comatose;
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36 years of Solitary: Murder, Death and Injustice on Angola
A young guard at Louisiana's Angola prison was slain four decades ago and the two men convicted were sentenced to 36 years in solitary confinement. This series uncovers evidence in the case which may free the men of their sentences.
Tags: Brent Miller; correction facility; prison; jail; Herman Wallace; Albert Woodfox; racially charged;
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A Girl's Life
The single 7,500-word story chronicled the life and death of Acia Johnson, a South Boston girl who seemed to be doing everything right: getting good grades in school, becoming a standout basketball player with a chance at a scholarship to go to a good high school and taking care of her younger sister. That was until her house was set ablaze last April in what authorities said was a jealous rage by her mother's lover. Acia burned to death along with her three-year-old sister in her third-floor bedroom closet. Her mother stood, safe, on the ground with the family dog. Her father was in jail. It was the last in a long list of instances of neglect recounted in the story. Anyone could have saved her life--her parents, drug addicts and sometimes violent petty criminals who never managed to get straight' neighbors who knew about the violent family fights and often didn't call police; friends who did nothing though thought it unusual that Acia was left to care for her sister while their parents were out running thr streets; social workers who had declared Acia's parents unfit in 2003 and placed her in the custody of her grandmother but who never figured out that she was still living with her mother. They didn't figure it out even though they frequently visited Acia at her mother's house, including two days before the fire. They didn't figure it out even though her mother reported Acia was living with her when she applied for housing subsidies, food stamps and cash assistance. And they didn't figure it out even though her mother's house was listed as Acia's primary residence at her middle school.
Tags: social workers; arson; child death; neglect; custody; Boston