FORT VALLEY, Ga. — One Fort Valley family says it's been five months since their loved one died in prison and they still don't know what happened.
April Farmer says her family's story started when she met Billy.
“I met him through one of my cousins. We started going out and then we wound up getting married, and kids, and family and stuff,” she said.
They had four daughters and two grandkids.
“He’s always happy, helped everybody, loved his kids and grandkids,” Farmer said.
However, she says he also managed to stay in a little bit of trouble.
“Ever since 1999, he's always been in and out of being locked up, but he's never hurt anybody," she said.
That’s why when Billy Farmer was taken to a Dooly County Jail, his family wasn’t too surprised.
“We talked to him every day,” said Danielle– Billy’s oldest daughter.
She says he was excited to finish his sentence.
“He's got grandchildren. They was waiting on him to come home and take them fishing, and now they're broken because he's never coming home," she said.
On March 21, Danielle says her dad was transferred to the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson, Georgia.
“We talked to him on the first day,” Danielle said. “Then we hear nothing from him, and then we get a call on that Saturday night and they tell us that he killed himself."
Danielle says the prison warden told her on the phone that the night before her father’s death, he had gotten a death threat. He had asked to be moved to another part of the prison.
She says the warden told her that Billy was allegedly taken into another area that was under surveillance.
They were told he was later found hanging in his cell.
“My father is not suicidal; we talked to him every day. He did not do that to himself,” Danielle said. “Another prisoner that knew my father, he called us and told us, ‘Don’t let this go. Your father did not kill himself.’”
Since then, the Farmer family says they've contacted the Georgia Department of Corrections dozens of times to find out what happened.
“We have no autopsy, and we don't have any closure. It's been five months and we still don't know anything,” Danielle said.
April Farmer said she didn't know his story would end like this.
"You know, they just killed my kids’ dad. You know, my husband, and they're getting away from it because it's been five months and we haven't heard anything. Yeah, we've had a lawyer working on it, but what can the lawyer do when they won't tell him anything? It's like they're trying to shut us out from what really happened you know,” she said.
The Farmer family says they will not stop looking for answers.
13WMAZ reached out to the Department of Corrections who say Billy Farmer's death is still being investigated as an apparent suicide pending toxicology reports.
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