Mother blames MS Coast jailers for 16-year-old girl’s suicide. ‘I’ll never get over it’
The scars on her daughter’s arms, remnants of past self-harm, should have been a warning to Harrison County jailers that 16-year-old Kayelyn Gwen Drake was at risk of suicide, her mother, Viola Carter, said.
If those visible signs weren’t enough, the family’s attorney, Michael Crosby, said the teen had also told some jailers and other detainees of her intention to harm herself in the hours after her Jan. 11, 2024, arrest in D’Iberville on an armed robbery charge. The following day, she was dead.
“She told them exactly what she was planning,” Crosby said. “And yet, no one took it seriously.”
Harrison County sheriff’s deputies booked Kayelyn into the adult jail after she went through a police interrogation in D’Iberville without an attorney or parent present, the family’s attorney said.
“She was a 16-year-old with no tools to deal with the situation,” Crosby said. “The interrogation was aggressive. She and the other juveniles involved were made to believe their lives were effectively over.”
“Going to jail by design is a depressive, oppressive environment for adults,” much less minors, Crosby said.
Crosby is representing the child’s mother in pursuit of justice for her daughter’s death. The attorney has informed Harrison County and the Sheriff’s Department of their intent to file a wrongful death lawsuit over the teen’s suicide. The mother is asking for at least $500,000 in damages.
Viola Carter, still devastated by her daughter’s death, believes negligence on behalf of medical and jail staff ultimately paved the way for her daughter’s suicide.
“Kayelyn’s death was preventable,” Carter said. “They had every reason to know she was in crisis and failed her in every way. I want to know why this happened.”.
The lawsuit aims to hold those responsible accountable and to push for systemic changes to prevent jail suicides in the future, Crosby said.
Since the teen’s death, other pre-trial detainees held at the jail at the time of the suicide have spoken to Carter and Crosby about hearing her daughter’s plans to kill herself. Those detainees declined interviews for fear of repercussions. The Sun Herald listened to some of their accounts of Kayelyn making her intentions known.
Harrison County Sheriff Matt Haley said he could not comment on the pending litigation but said, “Our hearts go out to the family. It’s definitely a tragedy.”
Since the suicide, Carter said the Biloxi High School student’s siblings and friends have struggled with the loss.
“Kay was very vibrant,” her mother said. “She was always helping others. She struggled sometimes, but she loved life. She loved cooking and singing.
“She loved animals. She wanted to be a veterinarian. I used to always joke with the little ones that Kayelyn was the favorite. They all looked up to her..”
An armed robbery offense
Kayelyn was one of four teens arrested on an armed robbery offense in an alleged Jan. 10, 2024, incident in D’Iberville, but Crosby said she was not directly involved in the assault.
The Sun Herald filed a records request with the D’Iberville Police Department to obtain information about the incident.
The investigation began after a witness called police to report seeing one of the accused allegedly assaulting the victim near a vacant lot in the area of Biglin Bayou Drive and then jumping in a gray 4-door sedan with the other juveniles.
According to the police report, the armed robbery involved the attempted theft of $50 and seven grams of marijuana. The crime allegedly occurred after one of the male teens in the car spotted the victim, and the group pulled over.
Kayelyn “was not directly accused of the assault,” the family attorney said, but instead was in the car with the other juveniles.
One of the male juveniles allegedly hit the victim in the back of the head with a bat at the time, the report said. The victim was taken to a local hospital with a preliminary diagnosis of a fractured skull.
Kayelyn maintained her innocence, telling her mother in one of their final conversations that she didn’t assault anyone but instead was “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A documented history of depression
Kayelyn, described as a vulnerable child by her mother, started having long bouts of depression a few years before her death. Her first lapse came after the man she called her father cut off communication with her after a divorce.
‘She never got over that,” her mother said.
After the teen’s suicide, the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department called on the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to do an independent investigation. Once the investigation is completed, the findings are turned over to the state Attorney General’s Office to determine if any criminal wrongdoing occurred.
The results of that investigation are unknown.
Jail report outlines teen’s last hours
Since the suicide, the Sun Herald has obtained a report from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department on the teen’s suicide.
The internal incident report, dated Jan. 16, 2024, details the actions of jailers and staff during the teen’s activity in the jail until her death.
According to the report, Harrison County jailers booked the teen into the jail at 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2024. Afterward, the jail’s nurse evaluated the teen and cleared her for housing in the general population.
At 8:20 p.m., a jailer took the teen to the jail’s D-block and jailed her alone in cell 132 due to COVID-19 quarantine requirements for inmates.
According to the report, the Harrison County jail’s policy is for inmates to remain in quarantine for five days to ward off any potential threat of the viral infection spreading among prisoners. Once the detainees are out of quarantine, they are housed in the jail’s general population.
Around 8:15 a.m. on Jan. 12, 2024, jailers escorted the teen to the jail courtroom downstairs for her initial appearance on the armed robbery offense. A Justice Court judge set her bond at $50,000.
Afterward, jailers escorted Kayelyn back to her cell.
Around 10:20 a.m., jailers let her out of her cell to go into the jail’s dayroom, or recreation area, for one hour. During that time, Kayelyn made one phone call and returned to her cell a short time later, at 11:20 a.m.
During that day, the teen received both lunch and dinner trays.
Around 2:44 p.m., a Harrison County jailer conducted an inmate headcount and reported that the teen was in her cell “alive and well. “
About four hours later, another jailer conducting the next inmate headcount found the teen hanging from her bunk by a bedsheet in her cell. The jailer cut the bed sheet and placed the teen on the floor, the report said.
“Security and medical staff” at the jail attempted life-saving measures on the teen until paramedics arrived, the report said.
Harrison County Coroner Brian Switzer and officials from the Harrison County District Attorney’s Office and MBI later responded.
The teen was pronounced dead at the scene.
MBI agents responded as well to conduct the independent investigation.
History of mental health treatment
For years before her suicide, Kayelyn had been struggling with depression.
She first sank into a funk after the divorce that ended her relationship with the father figure. She recovered for a short time before she lost a dear friend in a car crash.
“He (her friend) passed away on her birthday,” her mother said. “That affected her deeply.”
Her mother sought mental health treatment for her daughter after she turned to marijuana use and self-harm to alleviate her pain.
Her mother said she resorted to calling authorities on her daughter for smoking marijuana to get her help through Youth Court.
“I had to report her to get help, and she did so good there (in Youth Court),” Carter said. “She was still fragile.”
Her mother said her daughter had gotten stronger and was doing much better after receiving additional in-patient mental health treatment before her death.
The arrest caught the teen off-guard, the family attorney said, and the teen didn’t believe she’d see another day outside a jail cell. Her attorney said Kayelyn’s mental state shouldn’t have come as a surprise to those charged with caring for her during her time in jail..
“The adults — police investigators, officers, jailers — all came down hard on her,” Crosby said. “In the end, they failed her.”
Meanwhile, Carter said she doesn’t know if she’ll ever come to terms with her daughter’s death.
“My daughter should still be here,” Carter said. “I’ll never get over it.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
