2 more ex-Walker County jailers agree to plead guilty in Tony Mitchell’s death (2025)

Two more former Walker County jailers have agreed to plead guilty in connection with the 2023 death of inmate Anthony “Tony” Mitchell, federal court records showed.

Heather Lasha Craig and Bailey Clark Ganey knew Mitchell suffered from cruel jail conditions but did not alert appropriate authorities, according to their plea agreements filed Monday in federal court in Jasper.

Mitchell, 33, died Jan. 26, 2023 at Walker Baptist Medical Center, just over two weeks after he was arrested on charges that he shot at Walker County deputies as they responded to a welfare check requested by his family. Subsequent court documents have detail the horrific conditions of his time in the jail and subsequent death.

The county coroner’s death certificate listed Mitchell’s manner of death as homicide and listed the causes as hypothermia and sepsis “resulting from infected injuries obtained during incarceration and medical neglect.”

Lawyers for Mitchell’s mother, Margaret Mitchell, filed a federal lawsuit in March 2023, claiming that jail deputies tased Mitchell and locked him in a freezer, causing his death.

The lawsuit alleges abuse and medical neglect of Mitchell at the hands of Sheriff Nick Smith and staff at the county jail, including corrections officers, nurses and an investigator.

A response to the lawsuit filed by jail nurses disputed Mitchell’s family’s claims that he was locked in a freezer.

Attorneys for the sheriff’s office also said Mitchell was never placed in a freezer, and asked that the allegation be removed from the lawsuit.

“He was not held in a freezer,’’ the document stated. “In fact, the only times that he left the booking area was to attend his 72-hour hearing and to be transported to the hospital.”

Mitchell family attorneys responded by saying the claim was mischaracterized.

They said the claim about the freezer was not definite, but rather a likely possible explanation for Mitchell’s death and that a physician they interviewed for the case told them as much.

Court documents state that the Walker County Jail had eight booking cells that could be directly observed by officers at the booking desk several feet away. Among the eight cells, BK5 was unique in that it was essentially a cement box with a small grate on the floor that opens into a hole for fluids to drain from the cell, documents state.

BK5 was often referred to as the drunk tank in that it could easily be hosed down when inebriated people held there would vomit, documents state.

BK5 was unlike all other cells in the jail, but for observation cell AH3, which had no hole in the floor and was used only for detainees for hours at a time. It did not have a sink, toilet, access to any running water or a raised platform to be used as a bed.

The cell was notoriously cold during winter months and the temperature on the bare cement floor was even colder,’’ the plea agreement states.

Medical and mental health services were provided by an outside contractor hired by Walker County. As part of the booking process, all detainees were supposed to receive a medical and mental health screening to ensure that emergent and urgent health needs were met.

Craig, who was on duty for seven days of Mitchell’s confinement, has agreed to plead guilty to deprivation of rights under color of law while Ganey, a former corrections officer who witnessed Mitchell’s deterioration over his two-week confinement, will plead guilty to conspiracy against rights.

Although Craig knew Mitchell was deteriorating in the jail and was facing harsh conditions, “she did not raise her concerns with anyone for fear of being labeled a ‘snitch’ and suffering retaliation from supervisors if she were to ask to send [Mitchell] out of the jail for care,” the agreement stated.

“As such, defendant Craig did not take reasonable steps to alert appropriate authorities about the objectively harmful conditions of [Mitchell’s] confinement. Instead, she sought to avoid scrutiny from Jail managers by joining others in the Jail who permitted [Mitchell] to suffer from the cruel conditions under which he was housed,” the agreement went on to say.

Ganey, the agreement said, knew recognized Mitchell was subject to cruel conditions and did not try to obtain medical or mental health care for the inmate “in an effort to ingratiate himself with his supervisors,” according to the plea deal.

“Defendant GANEY understood that the choices he, his CO- CONSPIRATORS, and others in the Jail made regarding [Mitchell] in the face of the objectively obvious harmful conditions he suffered, would result in serious harm,” the agreement stated.

“Nonetheless, defendant GANEY did not take reasonable steps to alert appropriate authorities about the harmful conditions of [Mitchell’s] confinement because he sought to further the collective actions of his CO- CONSPIRATORS, including the decisions orchestrated by supervisory members of the Jail’s staff,” the agreement continued.

“In this way,” it said, “defendant GANEY believed he would not impair his future employment in law enforcement.”

The two guilty pleas come after two other former Walker County jailers -- Karen Kim Elsie Kelly and Joshua “Conner Jones -- also pleaded guilty in the case in August.