Family of L.A. inmate says life support ended without permission

LOS ANGELES - A man who suffered a heart attack while in jail on illegal immigration charges was removed from life support without his family's permission, angry relatives said.

Moises A. Murillo, 69, suffered a heart attack Friday at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles where he was in federal custody. Murillo was awaiting trial for allegedly re-entering the United States illegally after being deported to Mexico in 1986. Family members said he had lived in this country since 1958.

Murillo was taken to a nearby hospital where he was placed on life support but was removed from the support Monday, according to government officials. His wife, Catalina Hernandez, who had visited him weekly at the detention center since his July arrival, did not learn about his condition until several hours after he was declared dead.

U.S. marshals spokesman Jimell Griffin said it was possible that guards did not contact Murillo's relatives about his hospitalization because the incident occurred Friday night, and they didn't have time to contact the family.

"Our offices are closed on the weekends, and we only deal with emergencies as far as the after-hours stuff," he said.

Griffin later said that authorities couldn't reach Hernandez because they didn't have a phone number for her. They found the number after Murillo's death by searching visitor logs at the jail.

Murillo's family said Hernandez had been looking for her husband since Sunday, when she showed up at the facility for her weekly visit.

"She was told he wasn't there," said Ruby Murillo, the inmate's 31-year-old daughter. "The guard gave her a phone number to call. She called the number, and it just rang and rang."

Murillo said she called her father's federal public defender Monday morning, but the attorney did not know Murillo's whereabouts either.

Griffin said he did not know why guards did not tell Murillo's wife when she arrived at the detention facility Sunday that her husband was in the hospital.

Murillo had worked for the last 20 years at Los Angeles area carwashes. If convicted of illegal re-entry, he could have faced up to 20 years in prison, as well as deportation.

Officials at White Memorial Medical Center in East Los Angeles said hospital policy allows doctors to remove life support from patients who have no hope of recovery without getting permission from family members if relatives cannot be located.

"If we are aware that a patient has a family, we have to make every possible effort to contact the family," hospital spokeswoman Beth Powis said. She declined to speak specifically about the Murillo case, citing confidentiality laws.

Prison doctors knew that Murillo had a blood clot near his heart and prescribed daily medication, his daughter said.

She said the family would request that the coroner's office conduct an autopsy.