Jerome Mordough, a mentally ill homeless man, died of heat stroke after he was left unattended in a jail cell where temperatures reached over 100 degrees.
Mordough, 56, was arrested for trespassing in February after he crawled into a Harlem stairwell in a public housing project to sleep for the night. About a week after his arrest, the former Marine was found dead in his Rikers Island jail cell.
Authorities say that he died from the stifling heat in his jail cell and one official said he "baked to death." Mordough had been taking anti-psychotic and anti-seizure medications that could have contributed to his sensitivity to the heat.
The autopsy was inconclusive but preliminary findings show he died of heat stroke or dehydration. Advocacy groups for the mentally ill are claiming that officers did not check in on him regularly.
[GeoBeats]
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