Authorities on Wednesday identified the woman who died last weekend in the Allegheny County Jail as a Munhall resident, but details remain sparse about the circumstances surrounding her death.
Tracey Hickey, 53, died in the jail’s intake section in Downtown Pittsburgh at 7:56 a.m. Saturday, according to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The medical examiner’s office has not released the cause or manner of Hickey’s death.
Acting Warden Shane T. Dady had previously attributed the death to a “medical incident” but provided no further information.
Hickey was the first person to die at the jail this year.
“While the Allegheny County Jail has made strides to improve intake procedures and medical care, there is still more work to do,” Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato said Saturday in a prepared statement. “We will continue to seek improvements so incarcerated individuals … receive the highest level of care possible.”
A spokeswoman for Innamorato on Wednesday declined additional comment.
Munhall police brought Hickey into the jail Friday on four drug charges, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint does not say what time she arrived there.
A medical emergency was called around 7:30 a.m. as a result of “a medical indicident,” Dady said Saturday in a prepared statement.
Jail health care staff attempted lifesaving measures until paramedics arrived and took over. Hickey died at the jail.
Allegheny County Police are investigating, which is protocol for every death at the jail, according to Jim Madalinsky, a police spokesman.
He could not say when the investigation might be finished.
County officials said an internal review will be conducted.
A jail spokesman on Wednesday declined to make additional comment.
A Munhall police officer stopped Hickey on Friday shortly before 4 a.m. as she walked near the intersection of 22nd Avenue and Main Street, according to a criminal complaint in the case. She had a crack pipe in her hand, the complaint said.
Police said they found five stamp bags of heroin and two bags of crack cocaine in Hickey’s purse. Hickey told police she planned to sell the drugs, according to the complaint.
Munhall police detained Hickey at the borough police station then took her to the county jail, the complaint said.
The complaint does not say how long she spent at the station or provide any detail about her time there.
Police charged Hickey with two counts each of drug possession and drug possession with intent to distribute.
Munhall police Chief Thomas Fullard on Wednesday declined to comment on Hickey’s arrest, citing the county police investigation.
Bethany Hallam, a member of the county’s Jail Oversight Board and a county councilwoman, criticized the jail’s staffing levels and conditions in the intake section.
“Intake needs to be run like an urgent care clinic,” Hallam told TribLive.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that people are dying there, but it’s also not surprising, considering is it basically an understaffed set of rooms, where people are unsafely crowded into unsanitary holding cells for hours and days on end, and where there often isn’t even a single nurse or medical professional to attend to even their most basic needs.”
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.