Autopsy found Bernalillo County jail inmate died after undiscovered bag of drugs burst inside him

When Raymond Mills was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center earlier this year, staff removed a bag of drugs from his rectum after a body scan.

But it was the second bag they didn’t find that burst inside him, flooding the 41-year-old man’s body with methamphetamine and killing him, according to a recently released autopsy report.

The state Office of the Medical Investigator ruled Mills’ Jan. 2 death an accident from the toxic effects of meth. Mills had 46,000 nanograms per milliliter of the drug in his blood, or 230 times the amount seen in those who exhibit “violent and irrational behavior.”

During the autopsy, a black plastic bag tied at both ends, but burst in the middle, was found inside his rectum, according to the internal examination report. The report states, “no other material is seen within the black bag.”

“According to the detective, (Mills) is a repeat offender and is known for smuggling narcotics into the facility,” the autopsy records state. Court records show Mills has never been charged for sneaking drugs into MDC.

Attorney Laura Schauer Ives has been retained for a wrongful death suit in Mills’ death, with one beneficiary listed as his unborn child and “an unknown beneficiary John Doe,” according to court records.

In a statement, Schauer Ives said Mills’ death was “predictable and preventable.”

She said Mills was assessed as being at high-risk of overdose or withdrawal by MDC staff, and autopsy records show he was placed under routine checks. Schauer Ives said he should have been under more stringent medical monitoring and questioned how he still possessed drugs after an initial scan.

“Mr. Mills died alone and unnoticed,” she said.

An MDC spokesperson did not answer questions on the matter, including whether a second scan was done on Mills and what the jail’s procedure and protocol is in such incidents.

Mills was admitted to MDC around 4 p.m. Jan. 1 after allegedly stealing from a car parts store and using a knife to threaten an employee.

The autopsy report states when Mills was booked, he went through a body scanner that showed “a foreign object in his rectum.” The object, a latex glove with an “unknown substance” in it, was removed and Mills was placed in a cell alone because he was possibly intoxicated.

Around 7 a.m. the following day, Mills told guards he was “doing great” during a cell check, which were occurring every 15 minutes, according to the autopsy report. At 8:15 a.m., Mills was found unconscious, and medical staff tried to revive him for 45 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

“Toxicology testing of the post-mortem femoral blood revealed an incredibly high concentration of methamphetamine,” the toxicology report for Mills states. “... The autopsy and investigative reports of the circumstances surrounding death indicate the manner of death to be accident.”

At the time, Mills was the second MDC inmate to die in the span of a week. Since 2020, 35 people have died at MDC or died after falling ill at the facility.