Seminole Co. Fla. – The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a death at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility (JEPCF) of inmate Thomas Harry Brill, 56, of San Diego.
Shortly before 10 p.m. last night, JEPCF staff performing routine checks of inmates discovered Brill unresponsive in his cell and hanging from a bedsheet that was tied around his neck. JEPCF staff immediately began CPR and utilized an AED in an attempt to revive Brill, but all efforts to save him were unsuccessful. He was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced deceased shortly after arrival.
The preliminary investigation indicates the incident was a suicide, and there are no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.
Brill had been incarcerated in the John E. Polk Correctional Facility since May 27 for grand theft of a motor vehicle.
The Orlando Sentinel reported: His sister, Tracy Brill, said her brother did not seem to be suicidal in the last voice message he left for her shortly before his death.
“He only needed $500 to bail out,” she said. “Hardly not enough to die over.”
“He had plans,” Tracy Brill said. “There were things that he wanted to do as soon as he got out and he knew his funds were available.”
Tracy Brill described her brother as intelligent and an adventurer. She said he graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in mathematics and traveled the world with his lab-shepherd mix, Roz. Thomas Brill knew how to play the piano, organ, violin, flute and alto saxophone, his sister said.
