Alan Thibodeau

Alan R. Thibodeau, 51, lived in Prince William County, VA. He was a single father and the primary caregiver for his elderly parents. In 2021, after the death of his father, Thibodeau began weaning himself off psychiatric medications that he had long used to treat his schizophrenia. Early the next year, he checked himself into a Virginia hospital, admitting that he had become noncompliant with his medication and was experiencing delusions. Less than two weeks later, he was discharged from the hospital and soon went missing. On February 14, 2022, after being discovered asleep in the spare bedroom of a South Carolina home, he was arrested and sent to the Bamberg County Detention Center. Deemed unable to stand trial, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital but was never transferred there, according to a lawsuit filed by his family.

Instead, he remained confined to the county jail. During his nearly five months of incarceration there, Thibodeau was “administered zero mental health medications for his open and obvious mental health condition,” according to the lawsuit. Despite being diabetic, he regularly refused meals. Southern Health Partners, the private company contracted to deliver healthcare in the jail, failed to document Thibodeau’s meal refusals or refer him for a mental health evaluation, the lawsuit alleged.

On July 10, 2022, he was found unresponsive and transported to a hospital. He weighed 101 pounds, just over half his weight at the time of his arrest five months earlier. Doctors found him in heart failure, circulatory failure, liver failure, kidney failure and respiratory failure. Thibodeau also had open wounds and maggots on his skin. He was severely dehydrated and in septic shock.

James B. Moore III, the lawyer for Thibodeau’s family, told the Lab that Thibodeau had a “really strong support group and family." But when Thibodeau was incarcerated, Moore said, “this wasn’t even in the realm of possibility in their mind that this could be going on.”

Thibodeau died on July 23, 2022. The autopsy report noted signs of emaciation and determined his cause of death to be multisystem organ failure.

The lawsuit alleged that “had Mr. Thibodeau been provided with adequate hydration, nourishment, and medical intervention, his severe, open, and obvious physical decompensation and ultimate death would have been prevented.”

Neither Southern Health Partners nor the Bamberg County Sheriff’s Office responded to the Lab’s requests for comment.

A full account of the lawsuit—including the estate’s allegations against Southern Health Partners, Bamberg County and others, as well as each party’s response—is available through PACER (Case 8:23-cv-06605, District of South Carolina).

• IN THE NEWS (Warning: Disturbing Contents)
  • Article One
  • Article Two
  • Article Three
  • Article Four
  • Article Five
• LITIGATION (Warning: Disturbing Contents)
  • Complaint
  • Answer from Southern Health Partners
  • Answer from Bamberg County, SC