BY FRANK DELANO
Until his suicide last month, James C. Landman, 68, was the oldest of the 26 inmates in one of the prisoner pods of the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw.
He was also suffering from cancer. According to his friends and podmates, a lack of medical care at the jail contributed to Landman's death.
"We called him 'Pops.' He was like a granddaddy to everybody. Everybody liked him. He was an old bartender, an Army veteran, a seafood dealer, a hustler. He didn't seem like a bad guy," said Joseph M. Powell Jr. of Colonial Beach.
Powell, 41, has been jailed since April awaiting trial on five Westmoreland County felony charges. Landman arrived in the pod Aug. 19 after an auto accident in the county.
The deputy who responded to the accident charged him with drunken driving. It was Landman's fourth DUI charge. The deputy also found a warrant for Landman's arrest issued in 1999.
Back then, Landman had served almost a year in the jail for signing his father's name to another DUI ticket. When he got out, he failed to report to his probation officer to start a year of supervision and alcohol treatment.
In September of this year, Landman was sentenced to six months in jail for violating the terms of his parole. He would have been released next month.
Friends of Landman said that during his eight years on the run, he lived at various times with his family in Maryland, a brother in Arizona, a friend in Florida and friends in the Westmoreland fishing community of Chatham Village.
"He was as good a guy as you could meet. He'd give you the shirt right off his back," said Lee Hundley of Chatham Village.
'he was in a lot of pain'
Hundley said Landman loved Cadillacs, old cars and NASCAR races. When Landman was in Chatham Village, Hundley said that he worked at a transmission shop, as a painter and handyman and as a bartender at the Coles Point Tavern.
Landman, who was from Maryland, knew the tavern well. It was owned until recently by his brother Sammy.
Their father built it in the 1950s on a pier in the Maryland waters of the river. In those days, the tavern was notorious for its slot machines, liquor-by-the-drink and fights.
A friend of Landman from his days at Cople High School said he dropped out after a principal got on his case about his family's infamous tavern. Landman then joined the Army.
Between his stints at the Northern Neck jail, Landman had colon surgery. In July of this year, he returned to a veterans' hospital in Richmond. A biopsy confirmed that he had prostate cancer.
Landman's friends said the jail received a letter from the hospital saying he needed immediate treatment.
"He was in a lot of pain," said fellow inmate Powell. "He had a lot of trouble passing his water. He kept putting in request forms for medical treatment, but nothing ever came of it.
"One time, they took him to a doctor in Tappahannock who gave him a blood test and some medicine, but nothing came of it. The medicine didn't work and they took him off of that."
'HE JUST LOST ALL HOPE'
William Wilson, 37, is a federal prisoner from Delaware with three more years to serve on a marijuana conviction. Wilson said that he and Landman became "pretty close" in the pod.
Around the first of December, Wilson said that Landman started spending "lots more time in bed. He wasn't coming out to play cards anymore."
"He kept saying, 'I'm going to die before I get out of here,'" Powell said.
"He just lost all hope," said a friend from Chatham Village who did not wish to be named.
Landman's podmates said they had no idea that he was contemplating suicide.
He was pronounced dead at a Tappahannock hospital at 4:17 a.m., Dec, 19, a jail news release said. The jail said the Virginia State Police was investigating his death.
"But, in hindsight, there was one thing," Wilson said. "The night before he killed himself, Pops was in the bathroom wearing all his clothes standing on a chair looking over the curtain rod in the shower. Then he came out and sat down with us for an hour talking normally."
"Sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., he did it," Powell said.
Another inmate found him hanging from a bed sheet tied to the curtain rod, Powell said.
"I'm not going to comment on [Landman's] medical condition," jail Superintendent Jeffery W. Frazier said this week. "Every inmate gets proper medical attention when needed."
Landman was buried this week at the Cheltenham State Veterans Cemetery in Prince George's County, Md. He is survived by three daughters, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Frank Delano: 804/333-3834| Podmates' letter: 'They pushed him as far as he could go'
After James C. Landman's suicide, 17 of his fellow inmates in a pod of the Northern Neck Regional Jail signed this handwritten letter to his family:
"We could see how Mr. Landman was suffering with his medical situation. He, as well as others, have and still continue to battle with the medical department here. Mr. Landman and others wrote grievances trying to get him help. It seemed to be an endless battle no one could win. I think they pushed him as far as he could go. "In his last days, no one could see this coming, but he had withdrawn from sitting up front and watching TV and playing cards with everyone. We all just figured he was going through things, as we all have hardships in here . "In his last several hours, he sat with a few of us watching the Letterman Show and the late shows. We laughed and talked of the holidays and past events. We were talking about different holiday dishes and what we liked. One dish was a stuffed ham. He told us how good he was cooking this dish. Our mouths watered. "Mr. Landman was loved here as well." |