She went to Texas prison for treatment. Instead, abuse contributed to her suicide, women say
Gwen Rider was known to show off pictures of her two kids to anyone who would listen at the federal prison she was incarcerated at in Fort Worth.
She loved to brag about her 11-year-old son and his computer programming skills and her 1-year-old daughter, with her big blue eyes.
Her children were the main focus of the speech Rider gave before the judge during her sentencing hearing in January.
“They remain my greatest pride and joy,” the 44-year-old told Judge Timothy Hillman in a Massachusetts courtroom. “And I hope to be reunited with them as soon as possible.”
In the sentencing hearing, Rider and her attorney talked about her struggles with PTSD, autism and substance use. Hillman said during the hearing that Rider’s case “might be the saddest story I think I’ve ever heard.” He sentenced her to three years in prison.
In 2022, Rider was diagnosed with epilepsy. To receive appropriate treatment, the Bureau of Prisons transferred her in March 2023 to FMC Carswell, the only federal medical facility for incarcerated women in the country.
Five months later on Aug. 3, Rider died by suicide at FMC Carswell.
While the Bureau of Prisons sent Rider to Carswell specifically for medical treatment, women incarcerated at the prison say she did not receive the psychological or medical treatment she needed.
Her father, Steve Rider, said a doctor at the facility told her that her epileptic seizures were not real.
“If she had been given proper medical care and there had not been this argument about epilepsy and the fact that she needed to be protected from it, probably she would be still alive,” Steve Rider said.
Sentenced to prison after suicide attempt
Gwen Rider was an very intelligent child with an excellent memory, her father said. She dealt with mental health issues throughout her life, he said. She had trauma and PTSD after being molested in a Catholic school, and she was the one who found her brother’s body when he died by suicide.
Still, she had a soft heart. She was extremely empathetic and befriended everyone, Steve Rider said. She once saw a dog running around on a busy street and she immediately pulled over, rescued the dog and adopted it as her own.
She studied to become a nurse and developed “an encyclopedic knowledge of medicine,” her father said.
In 2020, Rider worked at a nursing home in Massachusetts. On Nov. 6, 2020, she was overseeing a unit specializing in care for residents with dementia. It was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Rider was having legal issues with her son’s school, according to court records from her sentencing hearing.
Nov. 6 also happened to be the anniversary of her brother’s suicide, whose death she had always felt somewhat responsible for, according to her father.
As she cared for a patient who was nonverbal and received morphine for pain, Rider removed about 70% of the morphine from the bottle and replaced it with water.
She planned to use the morphine to die by suicide.
Rider did not go through with her plan; she said during her sentencing hearing she worried what would happen to her son. When another nurse noticed the missing morphine, Rider was charged with tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and deception.
She surrendered her nursing license and lost custody of her children.
“I think it would have been OK if she had not been incarcerated and had simply surrendered her nursing license,” Steve Rider said. “The person wasn’t harmed. They just missed a dose of the painkiller.”
Rider’s attorney argued at the sentencing hearing that his client should be sentenced to 13 months — a lifetime for a mother of young kids, but a fair punishment for what she’d done, he said.
Instead, Hillman sentenced Rider to three years in prison and recommended she participate in psychological care.
“Ms. Rider, I know this is not a good day, and nobody here takes any pleasure in what’s going on,” Hillman said. “I can only wish you the best, and hopefully this is a beginning; and it sounds like you’ve got a good start on it, so good luck.”
Allegations of abuse
Gwen Rider was initially incarcerated on the East Coast near her family. But when she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the Bureau of Prisons sent her to Carswell.
At Carswell, Gwen Rider was able to see a psychologist at the facility that she spoke very highly of, Steve Rider said. She was working through further trauma from her time at a prison in Rhode Island, where Steve Rider said she was physically abused by a staff member.
But a medical professional at the facility “was very abusive to Gwen,” he said.
“The doctor kept insisting her seizures were fake even though she had a work-up and it showed it,” Steve Rider said. “There are people who feel that this doctor drove Gwen to suicide.”
Steve Rider said he isn’t sure if he can endorse that idea. “Each person is responsible for what they do,” he said. But he remembers many conversations about the woman treating his daughter’s epilepsy and said she was “clearly incompetent.”
Carswell has a history of alleged medical neglect. In 2020, 70 women at the prison filed a lawsuit, alleging abusive treatment during COVID lockdown. In October 2020, Cynthia Baxter died two weeks after being released from Carswell. Baxter had cancer and did not receive needed treatment from the prison, people incarcerated at the facility said.
In April 2021, 62-year-old Martha Evanoff died after begging for medical attention for months and being denied help, women at the prison said. In June 2021, 54-year-old Sherri Hillman, who was still awaiting a sentencing hearing, died at Carswell after being transferred there to receive medical care; one woman said she screamed for help for days but staff ignored her.
Not placed on suicide watch
Five women incarcerated at the prison with Gwen Rider said she had attempted to die by suicide several times but was not on suicide watch at the time of her death.
According to the BOP’s suicide prevention policy, a person who is suicidal will receive appropriate preventive supervision and other treatment. If a person is suicidal, they should be placed on suicide watch and only removed when they are no longer at imminent risk for suicide.
But women at the prison say staff did not follow those procedures.
Staff and some of the women incarcerated at the facility picked on Gwen Rider because of her seizures and because she grinded her teeth at night, said Faith Blake, who was in the same unit as Gwen Rider.
Alicia Elliot, who is incarcerated at Carswell, said Gwen Rider was placed in suicide watch for a few days and then released into general population. Merrideth Horton, who was incarcerated at Carswell until January, said it was common for people who needed mental health attention to not receive the help they needed.
According to Shannon Richardson, who is also incarcerated at Carswell, Gwen Rider told a lieutenant that when she got off suicide watch, “that one way or the other she was going to succeed.”
Richardson said that should have prompted staff to keep Gwen Rider on the mental health unit.
“Instead she was thrown right back into (general population) with hundreds of women and no close supervision,” Richardson said.
The Bureau of Prisons did not answer the Star-Telegram’s questions about why Gwen Rider was released back into general population and if the program coordinator first performed a face-to-face evaluation, which is required under the BOP’s suicide prevention policy.
“I don’t want her to be only (remembered for) that she ended her own life,” Blake said. “Her kids have to know that they were big time loved.”
‘I was very proud of her’
Gwen Rider called her dad and son nearly every day while in prison, Steve Rider said, and he had “never known another who loved her children more than her — it was exceptional.”
“I was very proud of her and very proud to call her my daughter,” he said.
Steve Rider, 75, and his husband are adopting Gwen Rider’s children. He has now lost two children to suicide.
Research shows that incarceration worsens existing mental health conditions. In state and federal prisons, a total of 4,500 people died by suicide from 2001 to 2019., according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report in 2021. The number of suicides increased 83% over that period.
“I’m looking forward to putting all this behind me,” Steve Rider said. “I am very good at forgetting bad things.”
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with someone, dial 988.
