A death sentence? Suicide deaths at Utah County Jail set off alarms

SPANISH FORK — Blake Ludlow worked during the day at his grandpa's Ford dealership in Santaquin, changing oil, snacking on circus peanuts and making customers laugh.

After eight-hour shifts, he would head to Spanish Fork where he spent his nights — in jail. Ludlow phoned home from the work-release program to tell his mom he was safe.

He never forgot.

On the weekends, when he wasn't allowed to leave, the clean-cut kid passed the time reading or playing cards with the other Utah County Jail inmates, talking about his family.

On Saturday, Jan. 15, he didn't call home.

Ludlow's mother, Karen Montague, received a phone call early Sunday morning from her parents. They told her the jail had called with bad news: Blake had attempted suicide by wrapping a sheet around his neck so tight that he stopped breathing.

By the time they arrived at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, Blake Christian Ludlow had died.

Ludlow's death was the first of four suicides in the Utah County Jail this year — already a record number for a single year. In the previous seven years, seven inmates committed suicide.

The four suicide deaths set off alarms. As a result, jail staff formed a new committee to re-evaluate jail protocol and training. They also added a step to the screening procedures for every inmate who enters the jail.

"Hopefully, this is just a statistical anomaly, as far as numbers," said Utah County Sheriff James Tracy. "We certainly are doing everything in our power to prevent all (suicides). That is our institutional objective — to have no suicides. That is drilled into everybody all the time."

But the families who lost sons, brothers and husbands still have questions about protocols followed by staff at the Utah County Jail.

Were they monitored enough? Did they take note of the inmates' mental states?

What went wrong? And what could have been prevented?

"You never think you're going to lose one of your kids like that," Montague said. "I'm not really bitter towards the jail. I'm just concerned about . . . what they can do to prevent this."

Behind bars