Inset: Melissa de la Cruz (Saxet Funeral Home/Facebook). Background: The Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center in Edinburg, Texas (Google Maps).
A county jail in Texas is accused of neglecting a female inmate who expressed pain for three days, eventually leaving her at a hospital where she later died from acute sepsis and organ failure. Her daughter reported that the inmate said, “I had to f—ing throw myself on the floor so they could f—ing come get me.” The family has filed a lawsuit following her death.
Melissa de la Cruz, 45, was reportedly not taken to the hospital by ambulance, as per her family’s claim seeking compensation for “mental anguish” due to the alleged mistreatment in April 2023. The family asserts that instead of addressing de la Cruz’s significant discomfort from medical issues leading to her death, staff at the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center mockingly attributed her ailments to alleged consumption of Hot Cheetos, Takis, and pickles, according to the family’s complaint.
“Melissa had been found on the floor, apparently cursing and yelling due to the extreme pain level,” the document says.
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The lawsuit claims that the Hidalgo County jail prioritized cost-cutting over detainee welfare by opting not to transport inmates requiring urgent medical attention to the hospital, including de la Cruz. Her family accuses the jail of neglect leading to her death, as stated in the complaint.
“Instead of calling an ambulance, which would have medical personnel who could assist, it appears that the sheriff’s department chose to drive Melissa to the hospital in an apparent county vehicle,” her family alleges. “This was a misguided attempt to save money.”
According to the complaint, jail staff did not provide sufficient care for de la Cruz as there was only a medical doctor on hand to see inmates for just “six hours each week.”
“The County was deliberately indifferent regarding policies, practices, and customs developed or used related to issues addressed,” the complaint says.
De la Cruz was locked up at the Hidalgo County Jail for a month after being arrested in March 2023 on a failure to appear warrant for a felony drug possession charge. Starting April 10 of that year, Melissa’s family says she began experiencing “strong chest pains, and her legs were hurting.” She allegedly reached out to her family and told “one or more jailers, and one or more jailers contacted the medical department,” according to the complaint.
“No one would answer at the jail’s medical department,” the family alleges. “Melissa’s daughter indicated that she would call the jail about Melissa’s serious pain. On April 11, 2023, Melissa said during a phone call, ‘I still feel like s—, but my body hurts.’ Her pain from a life-threatening illness continued.”
De la Cruz made numerous phone calls to her daughter and said she was feeling “like s—” and that the jail wasn’t helping.
“I haven’t been able to keep nothing down. I’m throwing everything up,” de la Cruz told her daughter, Ashlee Gonzalez, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of de la Cruz’s three children.
During an April 12, 2023, phone call, Melissa told Gonzalez, “I was f—ing sick all night. I had to f—ing throw myself on the floor so they could f—ing come get me.” She described experiencing “ugly pain … like bad” and said “it f—ing hurts” in areas near the middle of her stomach, and around to her back.
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On April 13, 2023, de la Cruz began experiencing severe abdominal pain, low blood pressure and an elevated heart rate. “This was likely due to serious infection raging in her body, untreated for several painful days,” her family’s complaint says. The jail transported de la Cruz in a county vehicle to a hospital that was 13 miles away that day, according to her family. She ended up dying there on April 22 after becoming septic and experiencing organ failure.
Gonzalez is suing Hidalgo County for “all damages and remedies available to her as a wrongful death beneficiary and/or heir.” Attempts by Law&Crime to reach Hidalgo County for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.
