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Faith Gay just wants to know why her husband, Thomas Fludd, died in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail.
Was he murdered?
She thinks so.
“I’m going to die in here,” he told her several times in the days leading up to his Feb. 19 death.
“He said it the entire week before,” Gay said in an interview Wednesday. “He had gotten into it with an officer. Someone didn’t like him. That’s why he feared for his life.”
So far, neither police nor the jail has been in contact with her or other close family members about Fludd’s death, she said. A detective called Fludd’s sister, who lives in another state. It’s not clear who the detective worked for and no one has told any member of the family whether the police suspect he was killed.
Fludd, 55, was one of four people to die in February at the regional jail. Two people with knowledge of the jail’s inner workings — who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want to get employees there in trouble — say one of the four deaths last month is being investigated as a homicide. Jail and Portsmouth Police, who investigate deaths at the jail, won’t say whether that’s true.
Lt. Col. William J. Anderson, an assistant superintendent, said jail officials had no further comment on the open investigation.
“However, as it pertains to next of kin notification please refer to the Portsmouth Police Department,” he wrote in an email. Police did not return a request for comment.
Since 2008, there have been 53 deaths at the regional jail, including the four this year. The second highest tally in Virginia is 34, according to a national examination of deaths in the country’s largest jails by Reuters. The jail also entered into an agreement with the federal courts following a 2018 U.S. Department of Justice report that found conditions there violated the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Fludd was awaiting trial on a petit larceny charge, a class 6 felony.
Gay first learned of her husband’s death from his sister after she was contacted by the detective.
On Feb. 22, Gay went with some family members to Fitchett Funeral Home in Chesapeake to make arrangements for Fludd’s burial. Gay’s sister, Christina Edwards, said family members told the funeral home director they wanted to see the body. However, the funeral home informed them the Medical Examiner’s Office would not allow them to see the body, only a picture of Fludd’s head.
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Ultimately Gay never saw Fludd’s body or the photograph. She didn’t hear back from the funeral home until March 1, after he had been cremated.
Edwards said she doesn’t appreciate how the jail and police have treated her family. Fludd may have been in jail, but he was good to her and her family, she said.
“Nobody has talked to anybody,” Edwards said. “He was a human being. Despite the fact that he was in jail, he was still human.”
The death of her husband and the fact that she’s heard so little about what happened have left Gay devastated.
“This is horrible,” she said. “It is the worst experience I’ve had in my entire life. I think the hardest part is not knowing what happened to him. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad if I knew what happened to my husband. He doesn’t deserve this. Nobody deserves this.”
Gary Harki, 757-446-2370, gary.harki@pilotonline.com
Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com