August 26th, 2010

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

No one is criminally responsible for last month’s heat-related deaths of three Montgomery County residents with mental health issues, according to District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.

“This is a terrible tragedy but, from the criminal side, everyone met their legal obligations,” said Ferman on Tuesday, adding that her office’s findings in its month-long review have been passed on to the state Department of Public Welfare.

“I think the real question is from the social services side, from the mental health side, what sort of extra precautions will the system put in place in the future so that people like this do not succumb to this kind of death.”

The state Department of Public Welfare last month launched its own review of the deaths because all three men were clients of Montgomery County’s Department of Behavioral Health/Developmental Disabilities, which receives state funding. The county agency used some of that funding to ensure that the three men received mental health services from a nonprofit agency with which the county contracted.

The newspaper Tuesday could not reach DPW press secretary Michael Race to learn the status of DPW’s review.

Two of the men – Jerry “Dutch” Snavely, 62, and John Malkasian, 53, both of Norristown – were found dead on July 9 in Snavely’s apartment.

The temperature of the apartment at the time the pair was found was between 105 and 110 degrees, according to county Coroner Dr. Walter I. Hofman. There were no air conditioners in the apartment, no working fan and the windows were shut, the coroner said.

The third victim, 56-year-old John Snyder, was found dead in his Pennsburg apartment on July 12. Again, said the coroner, the windows were shut tight and there was no air conditioner or fans in the apartment where the temperature exceeded 95 degrees.

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