Prosecutor: No charges in Kansas inmate’s death

A prosecutor has decided that no criminal charges are warranted in the death of a Missouri woman at a Kansas jail.

Fifty-eight-year-old Brenda Sewell of Kansas City, Missouri, was jailed in Sherman County when she died Jan. 22. She and her sister had been arrested two days earlier for possessing a small amount of marijuana.

Relatives say Sewell wasn’t given an opportunity to make a phone call. They also contend jailers refused to give her prescription medication and were slow to help after she collapsed in her cell.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Sherman County Attorney Charles Moser released the police investigative file exclusively to the newspaper this month. The report showed that Douglas County Attorney Charles Branson found that the correctional officers overseeing Sewell didn’t commit a crime.