Suicidal after being denied parole, 44-year-old Christopher Mount found himself placed in a small prison cell with a man serving time for strangling a woman. His cellmate told a guard he would kill Mount if they didn’t separate the two, a family lawsuit claims.

The guard did not intervene, the suit alleges, not even as Mount was being beaten and strangled to death.

Mount had served 17 years on his 30-year sentence for armed robbery, assault, burglary, theft and a drug charge. He had stayed in touch with his children and hoped to be released one day. After Mount was denied parole in 2021, his mental health went downhill, and he became suicidal, according to the complaint filed by his relatives, Brittani Lena Mount and Christy Michelle, in federal court in November.

The family members are suing corrections officer Jimmie L. Brayboy, Jr., alleging he ignored warnings and failed to prevent Mount’s death.

The Alabama Department of Corrections and the Alabama Attorney General’s office, which is representing Brayboy, said they could not comment on the case.

In his answer to the suit, Brayboy said that he did not act with deliberate indifference in Mount’s death and claimed immunity as a state official.

“Plaintiff is unable to establish any causal connection, legal or proximate, between any action or inaction of Officer Brayboy and the injury or damages alleged in the Complaint or for which relief is sought,” his answer states.

According to the suit, Mount was on suicide watch in a segregation cell in the B dorm of the Easterling Correctional Facility in Barbour County. The suit says he shared the cell with William Lynn Smith, 48, who was serving a 37-year sentence for murder. Court records say Smith strangled Jeanie Cheryl Kent, a woman he had been dating, in Cullman County in 2017.

“As a matter of policy, inmates placed in a segregation cell are to be monitored continually by corrections officers to ensure the inmates’ safety,” the suit says.

On May 10 of last year, the suit says, “Smith warned Brayboy that he, Smith, or Mount needed to be moved from the segregation cell, and if this did not happen, he, Smith, would kill Mount.”

The suit alleges Brayboy walked away. Then Smith attacked Mount. The lawsuit claims Brayboy knew Mount was being strangled and did nothing.

“For many minutes, Smith violently assaulted Mount and eventually strangled him to death without intervention from Brayboy.”

According to the suit, Mount was taken to the infirmary and declared dead that day.

“Mount’s injuries and death were the direct and proximate result of Brayboy’s deliberate indifference and his conscious disregard of the serious risk of harm to Mount,” the lawsuit claims.

In his answer to the suit, in addition to denying the claims of deliberate indifference, Brayboy also disputes the date of the incident. He alleges it occurred on May 14, 2023.

Less than a month later, Smith was also found dead, alone in his cell.