Teenage mother’s body remained in prison yard for two hours before being found, court told

The body of a teenage inmate at Melbourne’s maximum security women’s prison remained in an outdoor yard for almost two hours before it was discovered, a court has been told.

The Victorian Coroner’s Court heard on Friday that Tarsha Golightly, 18, was found dead at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre on July 27, just five days after she arrived at the adult prison.

The court heard on the morning of July 27 a prison officer unlocked her cell at 7.46 am and the young mother walked to the exercise yard carrying a laundry bag, which concealed a bedsheet.

Her body was not discovered until 9.41am when two inmates in the yard found her and altered staff.

Officers and medical staff attempted to revive her, but she was pronounced dead just after 10am.

The court heard police later searched her cell and found handwritten notes expressing suicidal thoughts.

Golightly was remanded on May 4 after being charged by police and was initially detained at the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct.

Details of the criminal charges she was facing were not aired in court.

Counsel assisting the coroner Amanda Burnnard said Golightly’s movements from the prison cell to the yard and the discovery of her body were all captured on closed-circuit television and would be used as evidence for the inquest into her death.

Burnnard said the circumstances in which the young woman’s death occurred, including how she was able to take bedsheets into the yard and why she was not discovered for almost two hours would be central to the coronial inquest into her death.

The court is also investigating the reasons for transferring an 18-year-old from youth justice to an adult prison, and what critical mental health or risk information was shared between the facilities.

“It is also appropriate to acknowledge that she was recently a very young mother, and so the profound and enduring effect her loss could have in that respect is not lost,” Burnnard said.

Victorian Coroner Simon McGregor will also examine the conditions of Golightly’s detention, including whether any constraints, such as solitary confinement and extended lockdowns, were enforced before her death.

Golightly’s death in custody follows a spate of high-profile cases of women who have died while imprisoned at Melbourne’s Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.