Stafford, Va. –– A female jail inmate indicted last year by a grand jury on drug charges and arrested Monday has died.
Rappahannock Regional Jail Superintendent Joe Higgs identified the inmate as 42-year-old Brenda Lee Cochran.
After being processed at the jail Monday, Cochran began suffering nose bleeds and was admitted to the jail’s medical ward for observation.
At 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Cochran was placed in an isolation cell in the medical ward where she made a phone call. It’s not clear who she called, said Higgs.
Cochran was in the isolation cell because she had a brother who is also being held in the jail’s medical wing.
At 4:35 p.m., a jail officer making dinner rounds noticed Cochran was lying on her bed and was not moving. The officer called out to the woman, then went into her cell to find her not breathing, said Higgs.
Jail guards began CPR and continued it until rescue crews arrived on scene. She was taken to Stafford Hospital Center where she was pronounced dead, said Higgs.
Cochran’s lived in Fredericksburg, and, according to court records, possessed illegal drugs on Aug. 1, 2009. She was indicted on July 6, 2010 and arrested Monday.
A call to Fredericksburg police to determine what drugs she was accused of possessing was not immediately returned.
