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Widow of Anamosa correctional officer killed by inmates in 2021 files lawsuit
McFarland filed suit after no changes were made following brutal killings at the prison
Apr. 9, 2024 6:49 pm, Updated: Apr. 10, 2024 9:14 am
Sara Montague McFarland doesn’t want another family to get the call she did March 23, 2021, saying her husband — a correctional officer at Anamosa State Penitentiary — had been hurt. Minutes later she was told, “I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it.”
“I dropped the phone and screamed no,” Sara told The Gazette Tuesday. “My (teen) son screamed no. I just cried for a long time.”
She had little details for hours. She knew her husband, Robert McFarland, 46, and a registered nurse Lorena Schulte, 50, of Cedar Rapids, had been attacked by inmates and had died. She also knew Lori Mathes, a prison dental assistant, had been taken hostage.
Sara wanted to go to the hospital but she couldn’t. The hospital was on lock down because of the pandemic. She didn’t think about arguing because she was in shock.
One of her sons drove her home and she called Robert’s parents. Family and friends started coming over after they heard the news reports.
“The rest is a blur,” she said tearing up at times thinking back to that day when her and their three sons’ lives changed forever.
It wasn’t until much later that day, when she talked to the officials with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, that she learned two inmates — Micheal Dutcher and Thomas Woodard — had bludgeoned her husband and Schulte with metal hammers in a failed escape attempt.
Sara said she waited for officials to address safety and compliance issues that led to the murder of her husband, but nothing changed, so she filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Department of Corrections officials and prison employees because she doesn’t want anyone else to be harmed or killed.
The 130-page gross negligence — wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Jones County, has 26 named defendants. The defendants are prison administration and employees, including Beth Skinner, director of Iowa Department of Corrections and William Sperfslage, now retired deputy director of institutions, and Jeremy Larson, the former warden of Anamosa State Penitentiary.
The suit states all the defendants had actual knowledge of the inadequate training, policies and compliance systems of the department and the prison.
The two inmates, Thomas Woodard and Michael Dutcher, who were convicted of killing Robert McFarland and Schulte, could access hammers used as weapons and a metal grinder they attempted to use to cut through metal bars because of the inadequate policies and compliance systems, the suit asserts.
Woodard and Dutcher were each convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, one count each of attempted murder of McKinley Roby, an inmate who tried to help staff, and second-degree kidnapping of Mathes. Each was sentenced to two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The lawsuit describes understaffing, known equipment failures, lack of safety protocols and procedures that created “dangerous” situations and allowed violent inmates to access “deadly weapons.”
The Iowa Department of Corrections declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Lawsuit: Prison was over capacity,
According to the lawsuit, Anamosa was over capacity and understaffed as a medium/maximum security prison for men, which it was designated at the time. The designated capacity was 911 inmates on March 23, 2021, when McFarland was killed, but it was operating with more than 950 inmates at that time.
The prison had a funded budget for 201 correctional staff positions in 2021, but only staffed 172 positions, according to the suit.
The department’s prisons had a statewide, cumulative inmate capacity of 6,990 but had 8,106 inmates in 2021. As of Wednesday, the department’s prison population has increased to 8,175, the suit states.
Suit contends restricted tools were stored without adequate security
The department and prison failed to adequately screen inmates for predetermined qualification standards to participate in the Inmate Maintenance Worker Programs or Iowa Prison Industries, the suit asserts.
Dutcher and Woodard, both violent offenders, were allowed to be a prison industries worker and a maintenance worker on the electrical crew.
The inmates had access to “Class-A” tools — restricted tools that could be used as weapons or to escape the prison. By correctional standards, Class-A tools are required to be secured behind three locking devices.
At Anamosa, these tools were stored in the prison without the minimum, adequate security restraints and/or devices, the suit contends.
Anamosa issued inmate workers with tool bags to carry tools throughout the prison but the bags were black and the contents couldn’t be viewed. In contrast, Anamosa did require correctional officers and staff to use clear lunch bags, the suit states.
Tool control remains an ongoing security issue at Anamosa, the suit notes, because a hammer went missing this year. According to the suit, it hasn’t been found.
On March 23, 2021, Woodard accessed two metal hammers, hiding them in his assigned tool kit bag, and also removed the metal grinder and four grinder cutoff disks from an unsupervised machine shop and welding booths.
Prison radios were ‘intermittently functional,’ suit states
The suit also contends the department and prison failed to provide adequate radio, engineering controls and/or emergency response systems for their employees. The emergency notification buttons on radios assigned to staff were only “intermittently functional,” the suit states.
Faulty radio reception and function prevented adequate communication with staff in the infirmary, where the deadly attack started. There were multiple reported incidents before the 2021 fatal assaults, where Anamosa staff and correction officer radios were not working.
The suit also asserts the infirmary was accessible to inmates without having to pass through a staffed security checkpoint, and inmates weren’t searched before going into the area. The infirmary, which is on ground level with windows and leads to the exterior parking lot, is an elevated security risk because it can be an exit out of the prison, according to the lawsuit.
The infirmary’s schedule required three correctional officers to staff it, but on March 23, 2021, there were only two officers, McFarland and another, the suit states.
On Aug. 18, 2020, the department was cited by the Iowa Division of Labor for insufficient emergency response plans at Anamosa, the suit states. On Jan. 1, 2021, a nurse in the infirmary was attacked by an inmate. She locked herself in the Pill Room to avoid the physical attack.
The suit also laid out the extensive criminal and institutional disciplinary records of Dutcher and Woodard. They both demonstrated propensities for violence against staff and others. The department and prison administration had knowledge of this information before the 2021 fatal attacks.
Despite knowing both Dutcher and Woodard were “dangerous” and had “violent propensities,” they were selected as inmate maintenance and prison industries workers, the suit contends.
Schulte’s family also suing for wrongful death
Stephanie Schulte, the mother of murdered nurse Lorena Schulte, filed a gross negligence/wrongful death lawsuit in January. It names Anamosa State Penitentiary Warden Jeremy Larson and 10 other officials as defendants.
Schulte’s first lawsuit, filed in April 2021, was dismissed last year because the nurse’s estate was inadvertently closed.
The petition contends the prison and department officials had been warned about safety issues at the prison, including radios not working, understaffing of correction officers, attempted escapes, prison nurses being held hostage and not enough employees to respond to emergencies.
Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com
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