A decade after a man died in Lemon Creek Correctional Center, his widow wants to know what’s changed

Tammy Jablonski Murphy said she had given up on the prospect of finding love before her first date with Joseph Murphy in the late 1990s.

“But he kissed me, and it was like, ‘I’ll marry you right now.’ I mean, that’s how I felt in my heart,” she said. “I thought, ‘I can see me with you for the rest of my natural life.’”

Instead, their years together were cut short.

Joseph Murphy died of a heart attack on Aug. 14, 2015 in Juneau’s Lemon Creek Correctional Center after guards refused him care. He was there on a protective custody hold — a type of hold intended to prevent someone from harming themselves or others while intoxicated. He wasn’t charged with a crime.

Jablonski Murphy said her late husband had a heart condition, but it was treatable, and that he may not have died if he’d ha