The William Andrell Thomas Story
"He Didn't Have A Life Sentence!"
My name is Tanisha B. Thomas, and this is my son’s story!
William Andrell Thomas suffered an anoxic brain injury on August 07, 2023 after being found hanging in his solitary confined cell at St. Clair Correctional facility in Alabama.
William was serving a sentence on a parole violation for a drug possession charge in 2018. His initial conviction was a robbery he committed at 17 years old in 2011. He was sentenced to an additional five years after being denied a parole opportunity due to Alabama’s harsh punishment laws in 2019 on a parole violation charge.
At the time, he had placed himself into solitary confinement to be safe from physical abuse that he endured and detoxes from his drug addiction he inherited while incarcerated. He thought isolation was the best thing to do because he wanted to get away from the temptation to use, be safe, and he also did not want to go through the withdrawals publicly.
My family and I called the prison on multiple occasions requesting help and treatment for William. He took it upon himself to isolate himself for the better after the prison denied our request for help. I believe in solitary confinement;
One of the following things happened to him:
1. The detox caused severe hallucination.
2. Someone did this to him.
What happened to William Andrell Thomas?
After he was allegedly found hanging from a light fixture in his cell, he was sent to the hospital in Birmingham Al (UAB), where he was placed on life support and placed into an induced coma. He was given a 1% chance to live.
Miraculously after being taken off life support, he opened his eyes! He was then sent to Noland LTAC hospital after they placed a tracheotomy into his throat for precautionary measures for breathing. Soon after he then began to completely breathe on his own!!!
Because he was recovering so quickly Alabama Department of Corrections requested my son be sent BACK to St. Clair prison to the prison infirmary where he received the bare minimum care.
It is clear the prison didn’t want him to get better because during his time in the infirmary, they tried to starve him to death which caused him to become severely malnourished.
This also caused him to receive multiple bed sores to the point he had to have a medical procedure removing parts of his bottom. The prison would never really inform us on his medical issues but by the GRACE of GOD he held on for 9 months after being treated harshly.