Woman Forgotten, Held Four Days in Cell Without Food or Water
A woman was held for four days in a holding cell at an Arkansas courthouse with no food or water because authorities forgot she was there.
The woman, Adriana Torres-Flores, had to sleep using her shoe as a pillow and drank her own urine, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. She had no bathroom and no bed in the small cell. After she was discovered, she was treated at a local hospital and released.
Jay Cantrell, chief deputy of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, told the Associated Press the bailiff forgot he placed the woman in the cell on Thursday. “He just flat forgot about her,” Cantrell said. “It was just a horrible mistake.”
The bailiff has been placed on administrative leave and is “a broken man right now,” Washington County Sheriff Tim Helder told the Democrat-Gazette.
Fewer people were at the courthouse on Friday because of a snowstorm, and Torres-Flores wasn’t discovered until Monday. She had been arrested on charges of selling pirated DVDs and CDs at a flea market, her lawyer said.
