COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’ll be two years in June.
Two years since Reatha Freeman lost her daughter, 29-year-old Fredreca Ford.
After violating her parole, Ford was taken to Franklin County’s Jackson Pike Jail. Not long after, Ford was found unresponsive and later died. The cause of her death, according to the coroner’s office, was an overdose of fentanyl. Law enforcement said the drugs did not come from Ford.
By the end of 2021, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office had asked for an 18-count indictment against 30-year-old Jamila Perry, who was also incarcerated during Ford’s stay at Jackson Pike.
In June of 2022, Freeman’s fight continued, wondering why the prosecutor’s office had not moved forward with the case.
Monday, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office announced it was Perry who allegedly provided the drugs that killed Ford and charged her with seven counts including involuntary manslaughter, possession, trafficking and transporting drugs onto the grounds of a specified governmental facility.
A warrant for Perry’s arrest has been issued.
“Justice needs to be served for my daughter,” Freeman said.
Tuesday, in an exclusive interview, Freeman, for the first time, spoke directly to the woman accused of killing her daughter.
“She had a bad five minutes of a decision that affected so many lives for what she done,” Freeman said.
It’s a sigh of relief, Freeman says of the charges, thinking many times it was a day she would never see. She says the fight is not finished.
“It’s a really good stepping stone,” she said. “A really good step forward, but it’s not over.”
For Freeman, her daughter’s death must create necessary change to keep it from happening again.
“If my daughter didn’t die, it wouldn’t have been my fight,” she said. “So, she was chosen. We got her for 29 years, but God called her home because this can’t continue happening.”
The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office is currently looking into requests from 10TV for current statistical information relating to inmate overdoses, deaths and the use of Narcan since Fredreca Ford’s death.
FCSO says from 2018 to 2021 there were four inmate deaths due to drug overdoses and 65 times where Narcan was administered.
As of June of 2022, FCSO says Narcan had been administered 10 times to inmates.
FSCO says measures are taken to help prevent contraband from entering jails, such as providing inmates with clothes so that they cannot sneak anything into the hems of their clothes. FSCO also provides photocopies of mail so that the original copies cannot be soaked in any substance.
The sheriff’s office has also purchased and trained two drug-sniffing canines in the last couple years for the exclusive use inside corrections centers.