3 months after leaving state hospital, she was supposed to be free. Instead she was dead

Each day someone at Patton State Hospital handed Fredreaka Jack her medication: three pills to manage her schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, one or two for her blood sugar, one for hypertension and one for hypothyroidism.

That all changed on April 14, 2022. Jack had been sentenced to 32 months in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree burglary. After successfully petitioning to be paroled into the community, she just had to complete about three months at a state-funded reentry facility known as Walden House and she’d be free.