MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Corrections deputies found Beverly Turnage, 43, unresponsive in her cell at Jail East at about 2:50 p.m. on Saturday, September 12, according to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Deputies began lifesaving measures, the Memphis Fire Department transported her to Baptist East Hospital in critical condition, and she was pronounced dead at 3:37 p.m.
The Sheriff's Office said the death "is now an active investigation," in a statement reported by FOX13 Memphis and Action News 5. It has not released a cause of death, said whether the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation or any outside agency is involved, or published a timeline of her custody.
Jail East, on Mullins Station Road, is the county's detention facility for women. It is run by the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, the same office that operates the main jail at 201 Poplar Avenue.
The death lands in the middle of a jail healthcare handoff. The county's contract with Wellpath, the private provider of jail medical care, ends September 30, and Wellpath filed Tennessee WARN notice #202600004 for 119 Shelby County workers effective that same day, according to the state's official WARN report table. The new Shelby County Commission, seated this month with eight new members, took up the replacement contract with Wexford Health Sources Inc. at its September 14 meeting, a contract Daily Memphian reporting values at roughly $38 million a year. Which company was responsible for medical care at Jail East on September 12, and until what date, is a question the county can answer with a document.
It also lands days after a Shelby County jury split its verdict in the first trial over the 2022 death of Gershun Freeman at 201 Poplar, convicting one former jailer and acquitting another, a case The 901 Report covered from opening statements to verdict. In 2022, the county jail system recorded 14 deaths in custody, the highest annual total under Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr.'s tenure, according to prior Local Memphis reporting.
No one has alleged wrongdoing in Turnage's death, and the Sheriff's Office statement describes an investigation, not a finding. What exists today is a name, an age, a facility, two timestamps, and an open file.
Why It Matters for Memphis
An in-custody death is the sharpest test of the county's duty of care, and this one arrives while the instruments of that care are changing hands: the outgoing provider's contract and its workforce WARN notice both end September 30, and the incoming provider's contract went before the Commission two days after she died. Whether the transition left any gap at the women's facility is a question with a documentary answer, and the public is owed it.
The Oversight Question
Who was responsible for Beverly Turnage's medical care on September 12, what did her custody record show in the hours before 2:50 p.m., and will the county release both before the healthcare handoff closes on September 30?
Your city. Your money. Your receipts.
