The family of Robert Ivy, who was the second of four apparent suicides at the East Arkansas Unit of the Department of Arkansas Correction (known as Brickeys) this year, has retained a lawyer and is awaiting the outcome of an internal investigation by the prison to determine whether to file a wrongful death suit.

The family is being represented by Brandon W. Lacy of Jonesboro. Lacy said it was his opinion that there is never a “justifiable circumstance” for a “prisoner on suicide watch” to have access to the tools to kill himself. He said the prison should have “policies and procedures in place to make sure these kinds of things can’t be happening.”

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Ivy, 37, who was serving a five-year sentence for possession of a controlled substance, was found hanged April 11. Two days later, on April 13, Gavin Loverin, 38, was also found hanging at Brickeys, and on April 30, William Childress, 25, was found hanged. Those deaths came after Brickeys officers reported the apparent suicide of Danny Ollis, 44, on March 1. All were hanged in locked, one-man cells.

Lacy was retained by Ivy’s mother, Regina Bonnay of Florida; sister, Christina Dill, of Jonesboro, who is the administrator of Ivy’s estate; and Ivy’s father, Donald Ivy, of Jonesboro. Lacy said he’d been contacted by another family of a Brickeys suicide, but had not met with them.

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