After Jennifer Wade died in the Cuyahoga County jail last year, a county spokesperson said that she had suffered from preexisting medical conditions. Jail staff tried to save the 41-year-old when they found her unresponsive in the early morning, the spokesperson said, but she died after being taken by ambulance to a hospital.

State inspectors found no policy or procedural errors in how the staff responded.

But new body camera videos — which were never provided to the inspectors — show that Wade was left lying on the concrete floor of her jail cell for hours before anyone sounded the alarm. Even then, more than 20 minutes lapsed before nurses began to administer CPR.

Now, a state oversight agency is reopening its review of Wade’s death after learning that county officials did not share video evidence in what her family is calling “a clear case of neglect.”

Two experts in correctional and emergency health care reviewed the footage for The Marshall Project - Cleveland. They said there is little chance of surviving cardiac arrest after a delay as long as the corrections officers and nurses waited to start chest compressions on Wade.

“From a medical perspective, it was absolutely egregious care that doesn't require any sophisticated medical knowledge,” said Eric Jaeger, a paramedic, emergency medical services educator and attorney in New Hampshire. “You just have to have taken a basic CPR class to understand: Unresponsive. Not breathing. Begin CPR.”

Wade’s cousin Brandon Slaughter said she left behind two children. She worked at a telemarketing agency and suffered manic episodes caused by bipolar disorder.

“She was troubled,” he said, “but she was not troubled beyond repair and help.”

Wade entered the county jail in September 2024 after an arrest by hospital police at the Cleveland Clinic. A judge ordered a mental health evaluation, but a state psychiatric hospital refused to admit her due to her frail physical health, according to a county review of her death.

During her five and a half months in jail, Wade’s body and mind deteriorated. An after-incident report submitted by the warden said that Wade refused to care for her personal hygiene. She sometimes pretended to be asleep or unconscious, corrections staff reported.

On Feb. 23, 2025, officers conducted cell checks in the mental health unit that housed Wade every 30 minutes, according to the state’s review. Noticing that she had not changed positions, a corrections officer called a nurse at 4:08 a.m.

In the newly released body camera footage, recorded by responding officers, a corrections employee and nurse inside Wade’s cramped cell said that her body was cold to the touch. At one point in the video, an officer told Wade to “stop playing with us.”

Marc Stern, a correctional health care expert and former head medical officer for Washington’s state prison system, said that “vital signs don't lie” and that anyone with the most basic training could check Wade’s neck for a pulse.

With at least nine officers and nurses gathered, they pulled Wade out of her cell at 4:22 a.m. As staff wheeled Wade on a gurney to a garage entrance, a commanding officer turned to guards on duty, asking why they hadn’t raised an alarm sooner. One guard said that Wade had been on the floor of her cell since the day before.

“How can you justify somebody laying on that floor, looking like that?” the supervisor asked in the video. “She could have been messed up all day.”

While waiting for an ambulance, nurses began to perform CPR — more than 20 minutes after staff had reported finding Wade unresponsive.

The Cuyahoga County medical examiner ruled that she died of congestive heart failure due to complications from a prior pregnancy, as well as other underlying health conditions. The independent medical experts who spoke to The Marshall Project - Cleveland questioned how long Wade may have been dead before officers called for a nurse.

County and health officials would not say whether anyone was disciplined in relation to Wade’s death. They also did not answer whether any jail staff have received additional training that had been repeatedly recommended by state and county officials in previously botched medical emergencies. The county and MetroHealth, which staffs nurses in the jail, declined to comment on Wade’s case.

Local jail administrators are required by law to report critical incidents to the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention. The agency reported systemic errors — poor medical care, screenings, cell checks and emergency responses — in at least 10 of the last 20 Cuyahoga County jail deaths, according to a Marshall Project - Cleveland investigation. In Wade’s case, the bureau’s report found “no compliance issues regarding medical/mental health standards per Ms. Wade’s prescribed treatment.”

Along with medical and jail documents, the inspectors issued their conclusions based on surveillance footage from fixed cameras. That footage “skips badly,” the inspectors noted, and does not include a timestamp like the body camera videos.

Similarly, a 2025 state inspection found multiple failures in the death of Michael Papp at the jail. Administrators also failed to provide body camera videos to the state investigators reviewing that case. The body camera videos, obtained by The Marshall Project - Cleveland, show a nurse walking away in frustration from Papp’s cold, rigid body as she berates a corrections officer for waiting too long to call for help.

Cuyahoga County Councilman and Public Safety Committee Chairman Mike Gallagher questioned why the county didn’t give the investigators from the Bureau of Adult Detention the footage from Wade’s death.

"Anytime you have an outside agency doing a review, it is important that the agency has the complete picture so they can make a decision," he said. "I don't see any reason not to provide the video."

Inspectors did not interview the shift officers overseeing Wade or the nurse who initially responded to the emergency. They only had the surveillance video to review, which records no sound, so they could not hear discussions captured by body cameras about how cold Wade’s body felt.

Jaeger, the other medical expert who spoke with The Marshall Project - Cleveland, said body temperature drops about one degree per hour after the heart stops.

“She was probably long dead,” he said, noting that a corrections officer acknowledged that Wade had been lying on the floor since her shift began the night before. “But if she wasn't [dead], they waited so long that the efforts probably would have been fruitless, and clearly are a violation of the most basic standard of care.”

Slaughter, Wade’s cousin, said anger welled up inside him as he watched and listened to the newly released body camera videos. He told The Marshall Project - Cleveland that it felt like the footage was “swept under the rug.”

“They're not holding each other accountable, or anyone accountable,” he said.