SAD BUT TRUE –
June 19, 2026 – Cleavotta Morgan said her son, Daejon Morgan, called her every day from his cell at Men’s Central Jail. The 20-year-old inmate would ask her to pass the phone around to different members of the family. She’d often put the receiver up to his dog Hunter’s ear so he could hear the animal’s excitement at the sound of his voice. The family thought of his incarceration as a “blessing,” she said.
“We thought it would be a safe place for him,” Cleavotta Morgan said of her son and the L.A. County jail system. But during a call Oct. 30, 2024, Morgan heard screams. Then an unfamiliar voice came on the line.
“[Daejon] went down,” the man said. “I’m sorry I gotta put the phone down and get help.”
Morgan died in his cell from an overdose caused by fentanyl and heroin, according to an autopsy.
He was one of hundreds of inmates on a wait list to receive medication-assisted treatment for drug addiction, according to two L.A. County Correctional Health Services staff members with knowledge of the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly.
