The county coroner says a 19-year-old found dead at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana early today committed suicide.
Taylor Hart, who'd been arrested Aug. 7 for allegedly robbing the Nordstrom's store in Mission Viejo, was discovered by deputies on routine rounds in the Inmate Reception Center around 12:30 a.m.
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The center is where those jailed are processed before being sent on to courts, county jails or state prisons.
Hart was alone when deputies found him, a sheriff's spokesman reportedly said.
An autopsy performed today determined Hart died of suicide, but the exact method he used was not disclosed.
The District Attorney's Office will investigate, as is customary with all in-custody deaths.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.