Gemma Swingle, 36, was found unresponsive and died at the Tarrant County jail on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026.
Trevor Swingle
A 36-year-old woman died Saturday in the Tarrant County jail, marking the fifth in-custody death at the facility this year, officials said.
Gemma Swingle was found unresponsive in her cell shortly after 1:30 a.m. Saturday, according to a statement from the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office. Despite attempts to save her life, the sheriff’s office said Swingle was pronounced dead at 2:20 a.m.
Swingle’s cause of death has not been determined, but records obtained by The Dallas Morning News show in the weeks before she died, Swingle was pregnant and repeatedly taken out of jail for medical treatment.
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Swingle was first arrested Aug. 5 by Fort Worth police on a prostitution charge. While in custody, an arrest warrant affidavit says she was taken to a hospital, but did not specify why.
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The affidavit says Swingle escaped custody while in the hospital, but was later recaptured.
A Fort Worth police report stated that once she was found to be uninjured and cleared by EMS, Swingle was taken back to jail, but then was hospitalized again “for medical reasons.”
The report did not mention her pregnancy.
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The first record of the pregnancy appears in an Aug. 13 affidavit from North Richland Hills police, who were separately investigating Swingle over an alleged fraudulent check. The affidavit says the department was told that Swingle was pregnant and that her water had broken.
It is unclear what happened between that time and when Swingle was booked into the Tarrant County jail on Aug. 25, but Swingle’s younger brother confirmed to The News that she delivered a baby girl.
The baby is in the custody of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the agency confirmed.
‘We are very concerned’
Swingle’s brother, Trevor Swingle, said his sister was fun and adventurous, but lived a hard life and never stayed in one place too long.
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“My sister kind of chose a poor life, but I didn’t expect her to die in the care of the hands of the state,” he said. “I think that’s pretty egregious.”
Trevor Swingle said his family is waiting on an autopsy to confirm the cause of death, but want to know whether jail staff were aware of any medical issues and what steps they took to address them.
“We are very concerned that she was either not checked up on at all or ignored,” he said.
Previous deaths in Tarrant County jail
Gemma Swingle marked the fifth in-custody death at the Tarrant County jail this year, according to Robbie Hoy, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office.
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John Barr, 36, was the first death reported at the jail this year. He was found unresponsive in his cell on April 19, three days after he was booked into the jail.
Three men died at the jail in June, all within the same week. James Johnson, 40, died on June 16, while Carl McCray, 40, died the next day.
Mack Greer died June 18. He had a lengthy medical history that predated his time at the Tarrant County Jail, including a lifelong genetic disorder, Hoy said. Greer was granted a compassionate release from jail but is still considered an in-custody death, according to Hoy.
The sheriff’s office said all in-custody deaths are investigated and reviewed by jail staff, the agency’s criminal investigations division, the medical examiner’s office, an outside law enforcement agency, JPS medical staff, the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.
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Swingle’s death is being investigated by Haltom City police.
Staff writer Jamie Landers contributed to this report.