News

Released: June 24, 2014 - Tuesday, 03:45 PM

Autopsy Results

Contact: Tony CipollaPhone: (805) 781 4547Date and time of incident: 5-30-14, Approximately 5:40 AMPlace of Occurrence: ​County Jail Victim Information: ​Timothy Richard Janowicz, 29, Transient-No Listed Address​ Suspect Information: ​N/A ​The Sheriff's Office takes any in-custody death seriously, no matter what the cause, and we conduct a thorough investigation. With that in mind, the Coroner's Unit of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office is releasing the autopsy results for 29-year-old Timothy Richard Janowicz. He was an inmate at the County Jail who was discovered unresponsive in his bunk on 5-30-14.
His death is determined to be the result of acute heroin toxicity. The coroner's report also lists a contributing factor in his death as other significant conditions of atherosclerotic coronary artery disease with a 90 percent occlusion in one of the main arteries leading to his heart.
​The investigation into this case and how this inmate was able to obtain the heroin while inside the jail is ongoing.
The smuggling of contraband is an ongoing problem at county jails and prisons throughout California. The Sheriff's Office is doing everything the law allows to curb the introduction of contraband into the jail system. This effort includes a strip search of every inmate who is going to be housed in the jail and unscheduled searches inside the jail by a drug detecting K9 assigned full time to the jail. ​In addition, the Sheriff's Office has budgeted this year to purchase a digital security screening system which detects all types of contraband, internally and externally on inmates who are housed at the jail. The goal is to have this system installed by the end of the year. We have and will continue to explore all legal methods to detect and deter contraband from getting into the jail environment.