We recently told you about the in-custody death of an Orange County Jail inmate.
Now, another man has died in a different OC jail.
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Around 10 p.m. Saturday, a custodial officer doing a routine check of the Newport Beach Jail found 43-year-old William Robert Wedgeworth dangling from the ceiling. He'd apparently hanged himself.
The disovery of Wedgeworth's body came less than seven hours after he was arrested on suspicion of spousal battery, according to police, who added that paramedics called to the jail were unable to resuscitate the inmate.
This marks the second time in less than two weeks that the Orange County District Attorney's Office has been called in to investigate an in-custody death, as is routine in such cases.
On July 22, Gregorio Torres, also 43, died of natural causes after being taken from his Orange County Jail cell in Santa Ana to a local hospital, the Orange County Sheriff's Department previously revealed. Torres had been hospitalized since July 4 due to preexisting medical conditions.
Meanwhile, Wedgeworth's is the second apparent sucide by hanging at the Newport Beach Jail in 26 months. Michael Purnell, 50, reportedly hanged himself there in May 2008, the Orange County Register reports.
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.