Richard Macinnis lives with the disturbing memory of finding his friend’s body in a cell in the Halifax prison.
That experience in the Central Correctional Center of Nueva Scotia on January 15, 2024 convinced that the former inmate could have been done to save Richard Murray, a 60 -year -old man who had seen for months who had already helped save a previous attempt at suicide.
In a recent interview, Macinnis said that the day he found the body, he noticed that Murray had tied a sheet through the room, partially obscuring a view through the cell window of the place where he had hanged himself with a strip of fabric.
The scene has left Macinnis wondering why a correctional officer had not seen the sheet: the guards will be supposed to look through cell windows every 30 minutes to see the inmates. “They (correctional officers) would have seen a sheet and have seen their feet hanging under it,” said Macinnis, who is now out of jail and working in Halifax.
“Its protocol is to see a live and respiratory body. That is why they check us,” he said. “He (Murray) was not even in bed … He was at the front of the bed with the sheet in front of him (darkening his eyes).”
The Provincial Justice Department refused to provide an interview with the Superintendent of the jail, saying that the matter is before the courts in civil litigation launched by Murray’s family. He also refused to answer questions about standard operational procedures when correctional officers are making rounds.
However, a source with knowledge of the rules in provincial prisons, which requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the expectation of the guards is that they “verify to see (the inmates) are fine, every 30 minutes.”
The other key observation that Macinnis made was in body condition. Macinnis said Murray’s body was strictly Mortis, “a clear indicator” that his friend had died at least several hours before meeting him. The Autopsy report of the Forensic Doctor, provided to the family, does not provide a specific time of death.
He points out that Murray was last seen alive at 10 pm of January 14, 2024, and was found by Macinnis and another inmate when they delivered food at 10:50 am the next day, a period of 13 hours.
Murray’s family members say they were grateful to receive a letter from Macinnis last summer with details of death.
Dalton Murray, the son of Richard Murray, said in an interview on Thursday that “the letter that Richard (Macinnis) wrote us is very important because otherwise we would never have known all the details. Now we know that my father was lying there for a long time before someone found him. We would not have heard any of this from the prison officials.”
Macinnis also told the family that there were clear warning signs about Murray’s deterioration condition and suicide risks.
“The night before Richard (Ahio), he spoke with a correctional officer and told him that he felt suicide,” Macinnis wrote in his letter of June 30, 2024 to Dalton Murray. Macinnis also wrote that Richard Murray had been taken for an evaluation in the health unit on January 14, 2024, and then returned to his unit that night.
These details are similar to the Defense Declaration of the Province, provided to the Court the past fall in response to the family’s demand. The statement says that a correctional officer on January 14, 2024 had seen a letter that Murray had written to his wife expressing suicidal ideas and informed her to the health section of the jail. Murray was sent to an evaluation just before dinner and then returned several hours later to his cell, “without special clock precautions,” says the legal document.
That night, Macinnis said, his friend should have been with a special clock, instead of leaving him in the cell, where he said that the correctional officers often “simply breeze” their windows.
For Macinnis, Murray’s death is particularly tragic because he shares the belief of the family that man should never have been imprisoned at all.
At the time of his death, the resident of Antigonish, NS, had been waiting for the trial for nine months after his arrest for charges to point out a firearm to the police and pronounce threats in his house, charges he had said in letters to his wife who intended to compete vigorously.
Murray’s defense lawyer told the Canadian press that the charges occurred as a result of an incident in which the police were called to his home for well -being control. Murray, who had just returned home after a hospital stay due to mental health conditions, was alone in his home and held a shotgun in the belief that someone was entering.
Macinnis observed that his friend’s condition deteriorated during those nine months, particularly during the long periods of time that pass in his cells due to personnel deficit. According to the department’s defense statement, Murray had tried to commit suicide on May 31, 2023.
“You didn’t know if you went out, tomorrow, noon or night, and Richard had mental health problems to start,” Macinnis recalled.
In its declaration of defense in civil lawsuit, the province denied most of the family’s accusations to neglect their duty of care, including that the jail could not “monitor and supervise” Murray. The document says that due to the patient’s confidentiality, the correction staff did not tell him the reasons why Murray was sent back to his cell.
But Macinnis said that the public and family deserve more answers about death to avoid future cases of what he refers to “negligence.”
“Richard Murray was a good guy. I took care of him. He was heartbreaking,” he said.
“It was the first body I found. It was quite chilling.”
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