by MATT HUGHES
J-E News Editor
Attorney’s have begun taking depositions in the case of Schutte v. Webster County, Kentucky et al, a law suit filed in July by Carol Schutte, the mother of a 28-year-old inmate that died while in the custody of the Webster County Jail in 2012.
The law suit was filed on July 19, 2013 at the Western Kentucky Federal Court House in Owensboro by Carol Schutte, the mother of the deceased. The suit names former deputy jailer Robert J. Robison, jailer Terry Elder, Webster County and unknown officers and employees of The Webster County Jail as defendants in the case.
Stacy Blankenship, an attorney at Denton and Kevler, will represent the county, the jail and jailer Terry Elder in the case. The plaintiff is represented by Lee Sitlinger and Kelly Rowan of Sitlinger, McGlincy and Theiler, a Louisville based law firm.
“Christian Schutte was incarcerated at the Webster County Detention Center at the time of his death, but he was scheduled to be released soon,” said Lee Sitlinger. “He was a young, healthy man.”
According to Sitlinger, one day while working at the jail, Schutte, who was a trustee, collapsed and died of heart failure. An autopsy did not reveal a cause for the death.
“We have been investigating the death and learned that one of the deputy jailers put a substance into a soft drink that he gave to Christian a few days prior to his death,” Sitlinger alleges. “We are still investigating exactly what that was. The deputy jailer said that it was a saline solution from a bottle of contact lens cleaner.”
Sitlinger said that the deputy did this as a “bad joke”.
The attorney for the county could not be reached for comment.