TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the autopsy results for Chasity Bonner, more than three months after she died in the Tarrant County Jail.
Bonner, 35, died of natural causes, according to the report, and her cause of death was listed as atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, which is the buildup of plaque on the artery walls.
Jailers found Bonner unresponsive in her cell on May 27. John Peter Smith's medical staff began life-saving measures on Bonner and administered Narcan twice in an attempt to save her life, but she was pronounced dead at JPS the same day, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO).
Bonner’s family had been trying to get the results for months and told our content partners at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the results had raised additional questions for them.
“I don’t believe that,” Bonner’s mother LaMonica Bratten told the newspaper about the autopsy results. “My child ain’t never had no heart problems.”
The average life expectancy for women with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is between 69 and 82 years old, according to the American Heart Association.
“The question is still, what was the purpose for the Narcan? I don’t get it,” Bonner told the Star-Telegram. “That’s what they say and that’s what they put on there, but I don’t believe that.”
Bonner had been booked into the Tarrant County Jail on May 16 on a complaint of theft, according to TCSO.
Bonner was the sixth person who died in the Tarrant County Jail this year and one of at least 60 who have died in the jail since Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn took office in 2017. Some activists have since called for Waybourn’s resignation.
Tarrant County has spent more than $2 million settling lawsuits related to deaths at the jail in the past year.
