Inmate recalls terror of jailhouse beating
A coroner’s inquest into the death of a Port Colborne man at Niagara Detention Centre heard from the inmate who was locked in the cell as the victim hanged himself.
Adam O’Leary was within a few feet of Kelvin Sawa, a 46-year-old taxicab driver, when Sawa tied a noose to the bunk and strangled himself.
O’Leary told the inquest Wednesday that Sawa was talkative and with little to distinguish him from the other inmates when they met on the day before Sawa’s death.
O’Leary offered to give Sawa some of his food for a chance to sleep in the top bunk of the cramped cell that housed three inmates. There were only two beds. The third inmate slept on a mattress on the floor with his head beside the toilet.
Experience had taught O’Leary the best way for him to do jail time was to keep a low profile. He stayed in his cell as much as possible and didn’t get involved in jailhouse drama.
Sawa, who was facing sex assault charges against a minor, would never get the chance to keep a low profile. The inmates on his protective custody range found out about his sex assault charges against a minor. He only had a few hours left to live.
Dr. David Eden is presiding over the inquest at the Welland courthouse. The jury will be asked to make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths when the inquest concludes.
O’Leary heard other inmates calling Sawa a “goof ” — prison slang for a child sex predator — before Sawa was beaten by the inmate who ran the range, Jeremy Hall, who at the time was charged with firstdegree murder.
Hall and another inmate, Cale Rose, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Sawa’s death.
Other inmates, taking their lead from Hall, spit on, hit, taunted and forced Sawa to eat a stick of deodorant. Sawa sought refuge in the cell, O’Leary said, but the other inmates put their arms through the meal slot, pulled Sawa face first against the door, and took turns striking him.
The inmates standing at the cell door demanded O’Leary punch Sawa.
“Everybody was yelling at me,” he said. “I lightly punched him to try to make it look good. They were telling me to punch him harder so I punched him again. Then I went back to bed.”
Rose tossed a noose fashioned from shredded bed sheets through the slot into the cell. Sawa was told he knew what had to be done. Sawa’s first attempt at hanging himself failed. He didn’t tie the noose tightly enough to the bunk.
“I told him not to do it, to be smart about it,” O’Leary said.
Sawa replied that he “would rather hang himself than go back on the range” and tried again. His face was black by the time jail staff arrived on the range.
O’Leary stayed on his bunk looking toward the wall as Sawa strangled himself.
Karen Shea, the counsel for the coroner, asked O’Leary why he didn’t help Sawa.
O’Leary said he was new to the detention centre, and worried Sawa’s death would be pinned on him. “I was terrified,” he said. “I had never saw anyone kill himself.”
O’Leary compared Niagara Detention Centre to Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, where he has also been an inmate. The ranges in Ottawa have a corrections officer stationed 24/7 in glass booths, near the sally-port at the entrance to the range, he said.
“Ottawa is easy time,” he said. “It is more calm there. I felt safer.”
Niagara Detention Centre was opened in 1973 and built to hold 125 inmates. The maximum-security facility serves as a point of entry into the correction system. It holds inmates on remand and awaiting trial or sentencing. It also houses offenders sentenced to terms of two years or less. It’s current capacity is listed at 260.
The jury also watched a video statement given to police by another inmate on the same range, David Earle.
“I don’t feel safe in this jail, even when I’m with the guards,” he said. “I want out of this place. I want to get transferred somewhere else. It’s crooked in here.”