Man found dead in his Northern Branch Jail cell

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A 54-year-old Santa Maria man was found dead in his cell at the Northern Branch Jail on June 28. 

A custody deputy conducting a routine security and welfare check found Juan Lara unresponsive in his cell in the B Unit around 10:45 p.m., according to a Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office press release. Deputies and Wellpath staff tried to resuscitate Lara using Narcan and an automated external defibrillator, the release said, before county fire and AMR emergency medical services took over medical care and declared that Lara was deceased.

Lara was booked on June 26 in connection with possessing methamphetamine while having two prior convictions and being under the influence of a controlled substance, according to the press materials. 

“Detectives from the Sheriff’s Office are conducting multiple investigations into the in-custody death, including a coroner investigation,” the release states. 

The Sheriff’s Office didn’t return a request for comment. 

In March, custody deputies found an unresponsive 57-year-old female in her Northern Branch Jail cell; she was later pronounced deceased. According to a recently released Santa Barbara County grand jury report, her in-custody death was preventable. 

The grand jury found that she complained persistently about intense abdominal pain during the two days before her death on March 24, saying her guts were “all twisted up” and asking to be sent to an emergency room. Instead, jail staff put her in a mental health observation cell, the grand jury found.

On March 27, the Sheriff’s Office issued a public update saying the woman’s death was unavoidable and ruled her manner of death to be natural causes. The grand jury report disputed the Sheriff’s Office’s conclusion, saying that “there were opportunities to prevent this death.” It found that the woman died of an infection from a ruptured gastric ulcer, which it said has a survival rate of about 90 percent when properly diagnosed and treated.

“While the jail had established tools and forms to evaluate inmate’s pain, these were never utilized, though their use was expected,” the report states. “Nursing staff at the Northern Branch Jail did not follow an evidence-based process to evaluate or treat [the inmate] for her abdominal pain, though such pain assessment forms were available and their use expected.” 

The Sheriff’s Office has 60 days to respond to the grand jury’s report, which was released on June 24 alongside two others detailing investigations into in-custody deaths in 2024—one suicide and one traumatic head injury caused by an apparent seizure. 

This article appears in Jul 3-10, 2025.