NYC jail captain thought detainee was ‘making a joke’ when he threatened to take his life

A New York City jail captain took the stand in her own homicide trial on Thursday, saying that she waited to get medical aid for a detainee who had threatened to take his life and then hanged himself in his cell because she didn’t realize that he was serious.

Rebecca Hillman repeatedly said officers she was working with at the Manhattan Detention Complex in November 2020 did not give her any reason to believe that someone’s life was in danger.

“I really thought this guy was making a joke and these inmates were laughing at him,” she said.

Hillman, 40, was charged with criminally negligent homicide after Ryan Wilson, 29, died by suicide in a unit that she supervised. Hillman is also charged with lying about what happened on official paperwork. If she is found guilty, she could serve up to four years behind bars.

The Department of Correction and the Correction Captains’ Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors have said that Hillman filled out paperwork, walked around and ordered staff not to open Wilson’s cell door instead of immediately taking action to save him. In opening statements, they said her delays cost Wilson his life and called her behavior “a gross deviation from the standard of care.”

But Hillman described a hectic day with various tasks competing for her attention. At the same time, she said, personal grief was distracting her from her work.

Hillman said she had returned to normal duty just weeks earlier, following the 2019 murder of a close friend whom she considered a sister. The captain testified that she spent almost nine months on medical leave and several more on desk duty, during which she had no contact with detainees. She said the department’s medical staff deemed her unfit for duty after the murder and didn’t clear her to work until July 2020.

Hillman said the Department of Correction forced her to return to duty before she was ready. While on leave, she said, a department doctor told her the agency was short-staffed and that she had to start working again.

“I said I wasn’t ready to get back to work, and she said that she didn’t care,” Hillman said.

Later, when a supervisor told the captain it was time to take her required riflery test, Hillman said that she again resisted.

“I was extremely scared,” she said, adding, “I told her that it was not a good idea.”

In the fall of 2020, Hillman returned to full duty. She said she was running six housing units in a facility where she had never worked before her leave and added that she was still learning the layout and getting to know the staff.

“It was very, very challenging,” she said.

Hillman said that she wasn’t given any refresher courses after about a year away from her normal duties. She also said that she had never received suicide prevention training. Less than a fifth of city correction officers took a required suicide prevention class between Sept. 1, 2021 and Sept. 20, 2022, Gothamist reported last year.

During cross-examination, prosecutors said they had found records showing that Hillman had attended suicide prevention trainings in 2014, 2015 and 2018. Hillman said that she did not recall those trainings and that DOC records are not always accurate.

Prosecutors also noted that Hillman had written on official paperwork requesting bereavement leave that her friend was her “sister.” When an assistant district attorney asked Hillman how she defined the word “sister,” she broke down crying on the stand and gasped for breath.

Yoran pressed the captain on her leave from work, suggesting in her questions that she had intentionally misrepresented her relationship with her friend to get the leave, and if she had gotten special treatment. Hillman denied both.

Rampant absenteeism has plagued the city’s Department of Correction for years and has contributed to dire conditions in the jails. Correction officers receive unlimited sick time — a perk that some jail staff have abused, especially at the height of the pandemic. Three employees recently pleaded guilty to federal charges for vacationing, partying and doing home improvements while faking sick.

‘I knew I had to work’

On Nov. 22, 2020, Hillman was overseeing multiple housing units, including Wilson’s. According to prosecutors, the captain was planning to move Wilson because of an altercation with another man in detention. While waiting to be transferred, Wilson allegedly told an officer that he was going to kill himself and then took steps to do so.

Prosecutors said the officer asked Hillman to come right away, but that she waited. After she arrived, they said, she ordered staff not to open Wilson’s cell door and waited another 15 minutes to call for medical help. Prosecutors also alleged that she said Wilson was fine and that he was “playing.” They called her “heartless.”

Hillman challenged the state’s version of what happened.

As surveillance footage played on a screen at the front of the courtroom, Hillman walked through the moments leading up to Wilson’s death, explaining what she was doing and why. At step after step, Hillman said she was unaware of an emergency or had no reason to think that anything out of the ordinary was happening. She said an officer had told her that he’d heard from someone in custody that Wilson was hanging in his cell, but she said that neither she nor the officer believed it.

Hillman said that people in jail regularly tell her that they are going to kill themselves, so that she will take their requests seriously. But in this case, she said, Wilson had not threatened to take his life in front of her. She said he seemed calm when she told him earlier in the afternoon that he was being moved and that she didn’t think that it would cause any sort of emergency.

When Hillman met an officer outside Wilson’s cell and learned that there was a sheet wrapped around his neck, she said, she never ordered the officer not to cut it. The captain said she still didn’t think anything was wrong, because Wilson’s feet looked like they were flat on the ground. Surveillance footage showed that a crowd of incarcerated people had gathered in the hallway.

After several more minutes, someone opened the cell door. That’s when Hillman said she felt like “something’s not right.” She said she told Wilson to come down, and that he didn’t respond. Then, she said, she told the officer to cut the sheet.

Hillman called for a doctor and ordered the officer to perform CPR. Wilson was pronounced dead soon after.

After medical staff arrived, Hillman said, she tried to comfort the officer and “get the facts out.” She denied that she told him to write anything specific in a report about the incident. Hillman said she then went to the captain’s lounge and cried.

“I just fell apart,” she said.

Hillman was temporarily suspended and is now on modified duty at the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island. She does not interact with people in detention. Hillman also testified in court that was written up twice before for a DOC charge called “insufficient performance of duties.” She lost four vacation days in one case and the other is still pending.

If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide: do not leave the person alone; remove any firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt; call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org; take the person to an emergency room; or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.

This story has been updated.