I-TEAM: Dying for help | How a man’s mental illness in a local jail was his death sentence

WARNING: SOME OF THE IMAGES YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE ARE HEART-BREAKING AND DISTURBING. THIS STORY ALSO DISCUSSES SUICIDE. PLEASE TAKE CARE WHEN WATCHING.

BAMBERG, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - This is the story of a family whose relief turned to grief.

Alan Thibodeau was a son, brother, father, and friend.

He also had a history of mental illness, so when he turned up missing, his family feared the worst.

They didn’t know the worst was yet to come.

This is a photo of Alan Thibodeau the night he was arrested.

Five months later, this is what Alan looked like when someone at the Bamberg County Detention Center finally called for medical help. Alan died at the hospital.

Alan wasn’t supposed to be behind bars. He was supposed to be in a hospital bed. Turns out, the 51-year-old was dying for help. It seemed having a mental illness in the Bamberg Detention Center was his death sentence.

‘MUSIC WAS HIS LIFE’

“He always loved music. Alan loved music,” said Larry Thibodeau, Alan’s brother. Alan especially loved rock ‘n’ roll, specifically, 1980s hair bands.

When the I-TEAM traveled to Virginia to interview Alan’s family and friends, they made it very clear: music was Alan’s life. He could play other instruments, but Alan was first and foremost a drummer, keeping the beat for every band he was in. He was also the youngest of four boys who were also very musical.

Old photos of the siblings throughout the years, arms around each others’ shoulders, wide smiles, show the closeness of this band of brothers.

“I just miss him being around. Think about him every day,” said Larry.

ARRESTED 500 MILES AWAY IN BAMBERG

Bamberg County deputies arrested Alan on Valentine’s Day in 2022 after responding to a call about a burglary. They found him lying on a bed. The police reports say he itted he broke into a house on cold night for a “place to stay and keep warm.”

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Bodycam shows him calmly sitting in the back of a Bamberg County deputy’s car with his hands behind his back. His life was now in the hands of law enforcement.

Deputies took him to the Bamberg County Detention Center, where records show he needed help – not handcuffs. Records also show he was a victim of a process that moved painfully slowly as he was quickly getting worse.

ALAN THIBODEAU FOUND UNRESPONSIVE IN JULY

On July 10, 2022, jailers find Alan unresponsive in his cell. Staff finally call for medical help. The first to arrive are deputies. A jailer’s first comment captured on the deputies’ body camera seems to indicate it’s beginning to sink in just how bad the situation looks ... and not just for Alan.

Jailer: “Please don’t judge us, y’all. We’ve been trying to deal with this man … but he, he, he … now, he’s not responding real well. And I’m a little scared.”

Deputies aren’t there to help Alan, though. They’re there to help protect the jailers and medical staff from Alan.

Even though he is unresponsive, they tell him to “put shackles on him” because they warn he’s been combative, and he’s needed to be tased almost every time he’s brought out of his cell.

Alan is lying on the floor in his cell, naked and covered in his own feces. He never says a word, but you can hear a faint moan as deputies try to move him.

TOO WEAK TO SIT UP

Alan can’t even sit up on his own, so after cuffing his ankles and wrists, Deputies drag him across the floor and lift him into a chair.

For the first time, his emaciated body comes into view from the body camera. He doesn’t move at all, even as deputies cover him up or when they begin to roll him through the halls of the detention center.

His feet are dragging behind him, much like the process that brought him to this point.

‘HE DOESN’T LOOK NOTHING LIKE HE DID’

As deputies roll Alan Thibodeau to the front of the detention center, the body camera captures a conversation where deputies seem surprised Alan is in such bad shape.

Deputy: “He doesn’t look nothing like he did that night – the morning – we got him.”

Alan is dying. His organs are failing.

The 51-year-old is essentially starving to death.

Deputy: “He doesn’t look like he’s eat since he’s been here.”

NO MEDICATION FOR ALMOST 5 MONTHS

For 146 days, documents show, Alan hasn’t had any medication, despite Alan’s family telling the detention center “he cannot go extended periods of time without his meds.” In an email, just days after Alan’s arrest, Ed Thibodeau warns “it’s dangerous and potentially life-threatening if he doesn’t take them.”

His medications were not a secret.

When the judge ordered an evaluation, the South Carolina Department of Mental Health received a lengthy list from Alan’s hospital in Virginia. It included everything from anti-psychotics to anti-depressants to a mood stabilizer. The South Carolina Department of Mental Health also requested info from the Bamberg Detention Center, but documents show the jail said they had no records – only notes – which, it appears, no one ever provided.

NO MEDS – BUT NARCAN?

Alan does finally get some medication once he gets to the front of the jail. After going without the medicine he so desperately needed for months, paramedics gave him a dose of Narcan. Ironically, that’s a drug istered when it is believed someone has had too many drugs.

ALAN ARRIVES AT THE HOSPITAL

Bamberg County Emergency Services transported Alan Thibodeau to the Bamberg-Barnwell Emergency Medical Center. He was itted and began treatment, but he was transferred to Lexington Medical Center in Columbia that same day.

Nurses and doctors give him another dose of Narcan.

Then another.

And another.

Records show he had a total of six doses that day. Drugs were not the problem.

DOCTORS AND NURSES WORK TO SAVE ALAN’S LIFE

The deputy’s body camera is still rolling when Alan arrives at Lexington Medical Center. Nurses do not seem concerned Alan is a threat to anyone’s safety. Deputies insist he could be dangerous.

Nurse: “Does he have to be cuffed?”

Deputy: “Yeahhhhh. Because if he wakes up, I mean he is going …”

Nurse/doc: “Well, I need to be able to get an IV, and it’s kind of hard.”

Alan is in bad shape, and it’s increasingly obvious the hospital staff knows it. Still, deputies do not budge. They insist he be restrained.

Deputy: “I just don’t want him hurting you guys. That’s, that’s …”

Nurse: “I’m not worried about that. I don’t want him dying.”

Alan only lived for another 12 days.

He died July 23, 2022.

‘HE REALLY WAS A GOOD PERSON’

“Nothing excuses how he was treated,” said Alan’s brother, Larry. “Nothing.”

Brothers Larry and Ed Thibodeau live in Virginia. Alan did too, and even though he was the baby brother, he was the one to step up when their parents got sick.

“When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, my mom had a stroke. Alan was living with them, and he cared for them,” Larry said. Then came their mother’s breast cancer and chemotherapy.

“He was the one making sure she ate, took her medicine, you know, really cared for her. Brought her to all of her doctor’s appointments,” said Tracey Thibodeau, Alan’s sister-in-law.

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“It’s those kinds of things that were like, oh, man, we look back and we’re like – on top of his medication and his illness and fighting the world, he had to deal with all that kind of stuff too,” said Ed.

“I mean, just shows his character, you know, he was a good person,” added Larry. “He really was a good person.”

For years at a time, Alan would be stable. He has a son, and his childhood best friend remained his best friend into adulthood.

“Alan was so awesome,” said Michael George. “He really was. You would have loved Alan.”

Michael met Alan in 1980, and they’ve been best friends ever since. Michael even calls himself “the fifth brother.” His family has old home movies of the two of them together as teenagers.

ALAN’S MENTAL ILLNESS

Alan is described as a light to so many, but his illness took him to a lot of dark places.

He was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. He was also bipolar.

When unmedicated, he was hospitalized with “delusions and bizarre behavior.” He would see and hear things that weren’t there. At times, he’d even be catatonic.

His family shared cell phone video with the I-TEAM when they had to call law enforcement in Virginia. He was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital that day.

Medical records show he’d threatened suicide, but his brothers say it was more than a threat. He tried to take his life several times, and when he went missing in July of 2022, they confess – deep down – that’s what they feared he had done.

Still, they hoped he would be found, and they filed a missing-person report.

They never expected the phone would ring with word he had been arrested almost 500 miles away in Bamberg.

‘THE SYSTEM IS ENTIRELY BROKEN’

Meredith Anderson: “You were probably relieved to find out he had been found and arrested. I mean, this was great news. You thought he was potentially … dead?”

Larry: “Yes. We did! And that’s the thing I think people don’t understand about this – is he had schizophrenia, OK. He was a grown man. He was 51 years old. OK, legally, we had no authority, and nobody has authority over him. He can go wherever he wants. Even in conditions in Virginia, when he was ordered to stay in the hospital, after one week, he was allowed to sign himself out if he wanted to, right there. The system is entirely broken.”

However, this time was different. Alan had a criminal charge to answer to, so they thought he wouldn’t be able to sign himself out. They hoped he would have to get well. Friends and family told the I-TEAM, they thought he was finally on track to get the help he so desperately needed.

His brothers said they called often to check on Alan.

Meredith: “They said he was fine?”

Ed/Larry (brothers in unison): “Yes, yes. There’s no mistaking that.”

Meredith Anderson: " Did you have any idea he wasn’t eating?”

Tracey and Cat (sisters-in-law): “No. None. No – because his attorney kept saying, ‘He’s fine. Yes. So happy. You know, he’s laughing. He’s singing.’”

A letter from the Bamberg County Detention Center to the coroner echoes that. It says Alan never refused food but, instead, occasionally asked for more.

It says he “sang, laughed, and danced.”

It does indicate his behavior changed quickly, calling him “erratic and aggressive,” but “up spirited.” It describes other concerning behavior such as collecting his own feces and rubbing it into his skin, but never once does it mention weight loss.

“You can notice when someone loses 20 pounds. He lost almost 80 pounds,” said Cat Thibodeau. “And you didn’t notice that?”

ALAN’S DEATH SLIPS UNDER THE RADAR – ALMOST

Alan’s death in the hospital almost went unnoticed, too, at the state level. The solicitor dropped the charges against Alan days after he was itted into the hospital. It’s not likely he did that out of sympathy for Alan, who was dying in a hospital bed. With Alan is no longer facing charges, he was also no longer the responsibility of the Bamberg County Detention Center.

That doesn’t just mean not responsible for medical bills but not responsible to answer for his death

When an inmate dies in custody, it automatically triggers an investigation at the state level.

With Alan no longer an inmate, he was no longer in custody. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or SLED, would have no reason to look into what happened.

‘HOW DO THEY SLEEP AT NIGHT?’

Alan’s family drove to South Carolina as soon as they got word he was in the hospital. They never expected this would be goodbye.

“How do they sleep at night? I hope they close their eyes, and they see Alan every night. I hope for the rest of their lives. I hope they’re haunted by what they did,” said Tracey Thibodeau.

The family might have never known something was suspicious, either, if not for the doctors and nurses at the hospital.

Two days before Alan died, documents obtained by the I-TEAM show medical staff ed the state to report “concerns of neglect” when Alan was in the Bamberg Detention Center.

The state suggested ing the Bamberg County Sheriff’s Office, which staff questioned. They asked, “if it was appropriate considering their involvement.” The representative at the South Carolina Department of Corrections ombudsman’s office assured them that was the “correct reporting method.”

Bamberg County Sheriff Kenny Bamberg told the staff to “email him the report,” and he would send it to SLED. But the hospital then called SLED and emailed concerns directly.

ALAN’S FAMILY IS NOW ALAN’S VOICE

Alan was known for his talent on the drums, but his brothers said he wanted to start using his voice and be a singer. Now, his brothers will have to be his voice – and voice for other inmates and other families – who might also be victims of a process that leaves those with mental illness dying for help.

“Look what you’re doing, you know, you’re gonna’ help a lot of people,” Ed said, as if he could talk to Alan now. “I think he would say, ‘All right,’ you know. That would make him happy, I think.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

SLED has investigated, and the agency recently released the results of that investigation after the I-TEAM filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

While SLED determined nothing criminal happened, the family has filed two lawsuits. They are represented by the Evans Moore Law Firm. One of the lawsuits is now in federal court. The other is working its way through the courts in South Carolina.

TRANSPARENCY AND THE S.C. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT

Body camera is not subject to Freedom of Information Act in South Carolina. With the family’s blessing, the Evans Moore Law firm shared the video with the I-TEAM. The family also authorized the law firm to release medical documents to us.

The I-TEAM is continuing to investigate the treatment and death of Alan Thibodeau at the Bamberg County Detention Center.

More of the investigation

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