A Merrimack County jail inmate awaiting trial on sexual assault charges committed suicide by using a piece of metal from an arm brace he wore after a recent injury, according to investigators.
Roger Ward, 52, of Henniker was found unresponsive in his single-occupancy cell in the early morning hours of Dec. 20. Authorities say he slit his own throat.
Ward was living in a unit where inmates are checked every 30 minutes. He was not on suicide watch because he hadn’t given any indication that he was suicidal, jail Superintendent Ross Cunningham said Tuesday at the Boscawen facility.
“Typically there are flags and concerns that we can see in the person and that the offender is telling us,” he said. “In this case, there were none of those activities, at least that we’ve discovered to date.”
When Ward was admitted to the jail Sept. 7, he had a cast on his left wrist. Any medical attention he received was specific to that injury, and, at some point during his incarceration, the cast was removed, Cunningham said. It was replaced by a soft brace, which comes with a piece of metal stitched to the fabric.
“Over time, he removed that piece of metal,” Cunningham said.
A larger piece of metal was previously removed by jail staff for safety reasons.
“The next question will be: To what extent, in the future, we can find a brace out there that doesn’t have the piece of metal sewn in,” Cunningham said.
Ward was facing 15 felony charges, including aggravated felonious sexual assault, felonious sexual assault, indecent exposure and lewdness, and endangering the welfare of a child, according to court documents. He was accused of sexually assaulting two girls under the age of 13 between May and August of 2016.
Deputy Sheriff Jim Ryba, who was a part of the joint investigation with the county’s department of corrections, said there was no foul play in Ward’s death. The injuries to Ward’s throat were self-inflicted, and too egregious for the paramedics who tried to save his life to overcome, Ryba said.
“If someone is intent on doing something like this, they’re going to do it, and that’s my opinion of what happened here,” he said.
Though the external investigation by the sheriff’s department has wrapped up, the jail is still conducting an internal review of the incident, which is expected to conclude within the next week or so.
Cunningham said Tuesday that corrections employees responded exactly as they should have, following the department’s policies and procedures to a tee. He said Ward’s death was difficult on everyone.
Department officials are monitoring employees’ well-being in the wake of the incident and will continue to do so in the weeks and months ahead, Cunningham said.
“I’ve been in this business for 28 years and, unfortunately, this is probably my 12th (suicide) or so,” he said. “They’re few and far between, and they should be. We learn and adjust from errors, but the reality is, it does happen.”
Ward was laid to rest Dec. 27 in Summersville, Ky., according to his online obituary. He is survived by his mother, two sons and a brother.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)