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Authorities are investigating the death of Cortney Beldon Hensley, a 28-year-old Danville native who recently died while incarcerated in the Laurel County Detention Center. (March 16, 2013) |
LONDON — Authorities are investigating the death of a 28-year-old Danville native who recently died while incarcerated in the Laurel County Detention Center.
Cortney Beldon Hensley, a 2002 graduate of Boyle County High School, had recently moved to Corbin with her husband, Travis. At the time of her death March 9, she had been incarcerated for six days for allegedly obtaining a controlled substance without a doctor’s prescription, said Laurel County Jailer Jamie Mosley, according to reports in the Times-Tribune newspaper.
A jail staff member found Hensley “in distress” during a routine cell check. Officials unsuccessfully tried to revive her; Hensley was pronounced dead at St. Joseph Medical Center in London, the paper reported.
Hensley had visited the jail’s infirmary multiple times during her brief incarceration complaining of various ailments including back pain, Mosley said. Her last visit was about 90 minutes before she died, but officials determined her complaint was “nothing that would be viewed as a serious health issue,” the jailer said. She had visited a doctor complaining of back pain just hours before her arrest for alleged prescription drug fraud and was allowed access to some legally prescribed medications while in jail, Mosley said.
Citing medical privacy laws, the jailer declined to further elaborate on the nature of Hensley’s health problems, according to the newspaper.
Hensley had been briefly incarcerated in the Laurel County Detention Center Feb. 12 on a charge of theft of property mislaid or delivered by mistake.
During a telephone interview Saturday, Deputy Laurel County Coroner Darren Kilburn said his office expects Hensley’s autopsy results to be available within a week.
Hensley was the daughter of Joseph Harse and Jeanette Phillips Beldon of Danville.
