ST. PAUL (CN) — A former nurse at a Minnesota jail faces manslaughter charge after prosecutors say she withheld medical care to an inmate over two days and he died.
Minnesota Attorney General’s Office prosecutors charged Michelle Rose Skroch, 37, with second-degree manslaughter and two counts of criminal neglect, all felonies. Her first appearance is scheduled for April 11.
Skroch was the former nursing director of MEnD Correctional Care, which used to provide health care at the Beltrami County Jail, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis. Her nursing license was revoked in 2023.
MEnD contracts with over 40 county jail facilities across the country to provide inmate patient care.
According to the criminal complaint, Hardel Sherrell was booked into the Beltrami County Jail on Aug. 24, 2018, and appeared to be walking and communicating normally despite high blood pressure and complaints of upper back pain, a recent incident of respiratory failure and migraines.
Over the next several days, Sherrel complained to jail medical staff about increasing back pain and numbness in his limbs. He fell several times and jail staff had to bathe him because he was covered in feces and urine.
At around 8 p.m. on Aug. 28, Sherrel asked to be taken to the hospital and jail medical staff had concerns he had Guillain-Barre Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects the peripheral nervous system.
Doctors at the Sanford Bemidji Medical Center noted that Sherrel had lower extremity weakness, facial droop and difficulty swallowing. They sent him to the Sanford Medical Center Fargo for an MRI that showed no abnormalities.
A jail guard told civilian medical staff that Sherrel had been seen on camera moving his limbs without difficulty. A doctor at Sanford Medical Center Fargo diagnosed Sherrel with malingering and weakness and sent back to jail.
Jail staff told investigators that Sherrel appeared limp when he returned to the jail in the early morning hours of Sept. 1 and needed help getting into his cot. About two hours later, he fell out of his cot and remained facedown for five hours.
Over the next two days, prosecutors say Skroch refused to take Sherrel’s vital signs or conduct any sort of standard basic nursing assessment while also berating him for faking his condition, despite a jail doctor instructing Skroch to monitor and treat Sherrel should he worsen.
During their first interaction, Sherrel begged for medical attention but Skroch told him that “she would not bargain with him,” according to the complaint. Surveillance footage showed Sherrel was unable to move his arms and legs.
While she noted that his cell smelled of urine and feces, she reported that she was not concerned because that is a “common smell” in a jail.
At 2 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2018, Skroch reported Sherrel was lying on his mattress “comfortably” with “spit rolling down his cheek.” Prosecutors say she told other jail staff that Sherrel was “OK and perfectly fine.”
By 3:46 p.m. Sherrel was unable to speak. An hour later, a jail guard found Sherrel unresponsive. He was pronounced deceased at 5:25 p.m.
An autopsy determined pneumonia and cerebral edema caused Sherrel’s death but an outside forensic pathologist concluded that his death was due to the complications of “progressive neurological disorder [consistent with] Guillain-Barré Syndrome.”
In addition, an outside correctional health expert determined that Skroch’s failure to consider the “overwhelming objective evidence” that Sherrel was in medical distress “was a clear violation of the standard of care.”
The expert told law enforcement that Sherrel’s symptoms were treatable and survivable had Skroch provided basic medical services over the two days Sherrel was in her care.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, headed by Keith Ellison, charged Skroch after the Beltrami County Attorney David Hanson referred the case to Ellison’s office.