EVERETT — The man who died in the Snohomish County Jail this week was being held on charges of first-degree murder linked to a shooting at a motorhome in Granite Falls.
Around 11 a.m. Wednesday, the inmate, David Koeppen, did not come out of his cell for lunch, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies reportedly found Koeppen, 38, unresponsive.
Deputies called in a medical emergency. Medics performed CPR for more than 30 minutes, according to the sheriff’s office.
Koeppen, of Naples, Florida, died shortly afterward. He also had an Everett address listed in court records.
Koeppen was the third inmate to die in the county jail since September.
The official cause of death had not been determined by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The sheriff’s office planned to conduct a “morbidity review” independent of the Major Crimes Unit’s death investigation. The sheriff’s office said the case would be investigated as a possible controlled substance homicide.
Jail staff strip-searched inmates in Koeppen’s housing module, O’Keefe said. One inmate removed a bag of drugs, containing 10 grams of “presumptive fentanyl.”
“The Snohomish County Jail is currently in the process of obtaining a full-time drug detection K-9,” O’Keefe noted Thursday.
Police had booked Koeppen and Dillon Thomas, 28, in February after they reportedly barged into a motorhome and fatally shot a man who had been in bed with his wife.
Thomas remained behind bars Friday with bail set at $2.3 million, jail records say.
This was the latest in a string of safety incidents at the jail in the past year.
In September, two men were found unresponsive within four days of each other while in their cells. Both died.
The latest deaths come in the weeks leading up to a highly contested election between incumbent Sheriff Adam Fortney and Bothell Deputy Police Chief Susanna Johnson. The sheriff oversees the jail in downtown Everett.
Maya Tizon: 425-339-3434; maya.tizon@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @mayatizon.
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