report by: Chris Hayes,
PIKE COUNTY, Mo. (KTVI) — An inmate in Missouri cried for medical help, was given Tylenol, and then put on suicide watch before dying from a brain tumor, according to a jail incident report. The Pike County jail’s investigative report laid out a timeline that shows the 41-year-old woman, Hollie Grote, cried for medical help for months. “You could tell something was wrong, and she was ignored,” her sister, Ashley Lovelace, told KTVI. Grote’s daughter Shainey Harpole added, “She was losing her vision. She had headaches.”
Grote’s complaints were consistent and daily, according to her family. Their assertions are backed up by the jail’s records. “I thought she had had a stroke from the things that she was saying,” Harpole said. Grote was detained at the Pike County, Missouri, jail on a drug charge last June. When Grote told her family she couldn’t get a medical response from the jail, relatives said they personally visited the sheriff. “I asked if there was any way if he would let her go to the hospital, and he told me no,” said Harpole.
“He said that people do it for attention a lot.”
“(The sheriff) said he sent somebody to the hospital the night before,” Lovelace added. “I’m like, ‘What did they do? How did they get to go? You know, four months she’s been crying, begging you guys, and her physical appearance has changed.’” Clayton lawyer Mark Pedroli is investigating the case for Grote’s family. “A layperson would know this person needed medical care,” he said. Pedroli uncovered jail documents showing Grote began complaining shortly after being arrested on a drug charge. Medical complaints were first documented on July 28, 2021. Another inmate said, “Grote’s eye was drooping.”
By Oct. 23, Grote said her head hurt so badly that she was going to kill herself, according to the incident report. An officer noted “scratch marks on the forearm/wrist area.” “She still did not get the attention that she needed,” Lovelace said. “She still wasn’t sent to the hospital after she had done physical harm to herself.” Another officer wrote that it “looks like she is in pain but overall normal; laying on the pod floor crying and seems like she can’t think.” Another entry said the detention doctor advised giving Grote 1,000 mg of Tylenol.The record said Grote was then placed in what is referred to as a “pickle suit”
Anti-suicide smock – Bing images.
Officers then documented observing her on a video while she was on suicide watch.
An officer wrote that Grote was acting strangely and would only grunt in response to questions. She then slowly rolled off her bunk before she died on the floor. Pedroli said it was remarkable “…how consistent her complaints were and how often she pleaded just to get to go to the hospital, just to have somebody drive her down the road to see a doctor and that would have saved her life.”
An autopsy by the Boone and Calloway County medical examiner found her “brain was swollen” from a “tumor located on the right side.” Advanced Correctional Healthcare is
the private medical contractor for the jail, and a representative told KTVI on Thursday evening that it was working on a response. Sheriff Stephen Korte wrote in response,
“Due to the pending possible litigation, I am declining to be interviewed at this time as my words may be misconstrued and my opinions misinterpreted as facts.”
He also said, “An investigation was completed for any wrongdoing by staff and has been forwarded to the Pike County Prosecutor who will be sending it to an outside prosecutor for review.” Grote’s sister and daughter said they asked the sheriff what it would take to get an inmate to the hospital. They said they were told someone would have to be bleeding out or vomiting in a way that it would be obvious something is wrong. Hollie Grote died while in the custody of the Pike County Sheriff’s Department on Oct. 24, 2021. A news release then stated that the 41-year-old woman had died in her sleep while under observation.
Missouri inmate cried for medical care for months before dying from brain tumor:
report | WANE 15
The autopsy was done, and according to Mark Pedroli, the attorney who was hired by Grote’s family, the results showed that she died of a brain tumor. She had been in the
Pike County Jail since June of 2021, under two warrants, the Sheriff’s Department noted in its news release about her death last year. But according to documents uncovered by Pedroli in his investigation into Grote’s death, Grote had sought medical attention almost daily because of severe headaches. After getting clearance from the family over HIPAA restrictions and filing several FOI requests, Pedroli said he learned the depth of pain
Grote had been in during her four months in custody.
Pedroli said he filed a Sunshine Litigation against the Pike County Sheriff’s Office shortly after Grote’s death on behalf of her family “for refusing to give us investigative material.” After filing the lawsuit, Pedroli said they received “most” of the material they had asked for. Pedroli has been working with Pike County Prosecutor Alex Ellis, who he said is attempting to get the rest of what they need before proceeding with any action against the Sheriff’s Department.
“The only thing left is getting the communications between upper government officials about what happened that night—whether they be text messages or emails,” he said.
“That is the last remaining component of the Sunshine Litigation. “Once this is resolved,” he added, “I’ll talk to the family about what our next moves are.” After reviewing the material, he has now, Pedroli said he believes Grote’s Constitutional 8th Amendment rights were violated.
“From what I’ve seen, it seems pretty clear that they violated her Constitutional rights,”
he spoke. “She was clearly in need of medical attention,” he added, saying, “even a layperson would have known. You didn’t need a doctor or nurse or a professional to know that she needed medical attention, that she should have received it—(and) she didn’t get it.” He said the lack of treatment was a tragedy. Pedroli noted that he handles a lot of these types of cases, ones involving the death of an inmate in a city or county jail.
“This one—it was pretty brutal to review this evidence,” he said during a phone interview. “To see her (Hollie Grote) continuously begging—in writing—and other ways to get her
to a doctor or a hospital, to get someone to believe her that she was in that kind of pain.
Her symptoms were significant,” he added. Records show, he explained, that she had double vision and at one point could no longer talk. Sheriff Stephen Korte said his office did an investigation into Grote’s death and turned over the report to the county prosecutor’s office. He said he could only disclose the information he released last year after Grote’s death.
Pedroli said he didn’t think the Sheriff’s Office should have done the investigation.
“I don’t know if they did that here. I’m trying to figure that out,” he said.
“I discussed this with Ellis (the county prosecutor) at the start of this,” he said.
“A lot of times small counties will call in to the Missouri State Highway Patrol” to
do these types of investigations. “In my opinion, the sheriff can’t investigate the sheriff’s department,” he explained. “Someone else needs to do that investigation.” Ellis could not be reached before the deadline for a comment. Pedroli said he believes Ellis has referred the investigation to an outside prosecutor for review.
Dying woman’s calls for help from Missouri jail revealed | FOX 2 (fox2now.com)
PIKE COUNTY, Mo. – The family of a woman who died in jail while pleading for a nurse say they were told they had no right to their loved one’s last words. That changed when the family sued for the heartbreaking messages. Hollie Grote pleaded to see a nurse and go to a hospital while locked up in the Pike County Jail on a drug charge. She warned staff she was dying. Then she did. “(My Mom) was losing her vision. She had headaches. She had these spells where she felt like she was going to pass out and couldn’t talk,” said Shainey Harpole, Grote’s daughter.
Grote died on Oct. 24, 2021, in the Pike County Jail. The medical examiner determined
her cause of death was “increased intracranial pressure” from a benign brain tumor.
“She would tell me every day that she would request to see the nurse,” Harpole said.
Grote messaged jail staff repeatedly from an inmate kiosk, sending messages that family members say they used to obtain. Repeated requests starting in August 2021 – messages like, “May I please see the nurse ASAP?” and “I believe I need to go to an actual doctor or hospital to be tested.”
In September she wrote, “I could die if I don’t get the proper tests and or health care.”
Then in October, the month she died, she wrote, “I have extremely bad vision, darkness
on one side and major double vision. I need this to be looked into.” You can feel her frustration in another message the same month – “You guys are trying to kill me.”
The answer from jail staff is nearly the same every time – “This will be printed and placed in the nurse’s box.” The family says she never got to go to the hospital. “You could tell something was wrong. And she was ignored,” said Ashley Lovelace, Grote’s sister.
Harpole talked about trying to get the messages initially.
“I actually went up there before I hired (attorney Mark Pedroli) and asked for it and
they didn’t give me any of her belongings or any of that stuff because they said it was under investigation, which I didn’t understand,” she said. Pedroli sued under Missouri’s Sunshine Law to obtain Grote’s final written messages. He said Pike County refused to hand them over until he filed. “These kinds of cases are unfortunately more common now than ever,” he said.
“The only thing left that they have not produced, which is also extremely important, are the communications among the sheriff employees and the sheriff about what happened that night, and I also think — they’re claiming that because those communications were conducted on private phones. They don’t have to turn them over to us, but because they’re about her and it’s about public business, we say they do. “I don’t know why they would fight. It seems like maybe they are, in fact, hiding something.”
Pike County Sheriff Stephen Korte responded Tuesday, saying he’s not hiding anything and that his office turned over everything it has, including an internal investigation of the jail death to an outside prosecutor from another county for review. Korte said he’s limited on what he could say because of a possible wrongful-death lawsuit.
That’s something Grote also wrote about in one of her messages.
Approximately 24 days before she died, Grote messaged jail staff,
“When I do die because of the amount of neglect here …
At least my family can sue you.”
Contact Sheriff Stephen Korte and ask him to step down.
Phone: (573) 324-3202
Fax: (573) 324-3972
Email: sheriff@pikecountyso.org
1600 Bus. 54
Bowling Green, MO 63334
*Administration Hours 8:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m.
CRIME STOPPERS-(573)324-5000
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