Woman found dead in cell at El Paso County Jail

A 58-year-old woman died in the custody of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, the agency said.

The sheriff's office said its deputies found Felicia Hudson unresponsive in her cell and attempted to save her life.

Hudson, of Colorado Springs, was booked into the jail on Thursday, the sheriff's office said. Friday, she was found in her cell by jail staff just before 10:30 p.m., the sheriff's office said in a press release Saturday night.

Sheriff's office personnel and medical staff tried to save her life until responders from American Medical Response and the Colorado Springs Fire Department arrived and took over, the sheriff's office said. Despite the efforts, Hudson died.

She was the sole occupant of the cell she was found in, the sheriff's office said.

The sheriff's office did not indicate if she had any injuries or provide any details as to a possible cause of death and said that information would be determined by the El Paso County Coroner's Office. A spokeswoman for that agency said the autopsy will be performed Monday and results likely wouldn't be available for six to eight weeks.

The El Paso Sheriff's Office responded to a request for comment Sunday, saying, "We can tell you there is no indication of anything suspicious nor any indication of suicide."

Few other details of Hudson's death were immediately available. Contact information for her family also could not be located Sunday.

In May of this year, 2022 was on pace to be the deadliest year for inmates at the jail in a decade, the Colorado Sun reported at the time.

A man who died in his cell in April was the fourth inmate to die there in 2022 and the seventh in roughly seven months, that report found. 

The jail has not reported more than five in-custody deaths in a single year in more than a decade, according to a Reuters investigation documenting jail deaths across the country. But now, there have been at least seven in 2022 alone, or possibly eight, including Hudson's.

But the jail's problems with inmate safety predate 2022.

In 2020, El Paso County Sheriff's Deputy Christopher Rogers was fired after allegedly assaulting an inmate. Later that year, the sheriff's office was criticized for its COVID safety measures, which apparently led to a spike in cases at the jail.

Inmates at the jail, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder after that COVID outbreak. An agreement between the parties led to the sheriff's office changing jail policies and implementing COVID safety measures, which then led to a drop in cases.

A protest - which appears to have been organized prior to Hudson's death was made known to the public - was held at the jail Saturday protesting this very issue.

The protest, organized by the Colorado Springs Peoples Coalition, demanded answers in the deaths of inmates at the jail, as well as safeguards moving forward to prevent in-custody deaths.

Shelly Romero, the mother of someone else who died at the jail, told CBS News Colorado's partner station KKTV: "It just took a lot away from me and I want some answers and I want them to change."