What happened to jamie lee wallace?

Published Wednesday July 5, 2017
By Beth Shelburne

He was the first inmate to testify against Alabama's prison system in a lawsuit over mental-health care. 10 days later he was dead. Jamie Wallace's apparent suicide was the final chapter in a sad, broken life. This is his story and legacy. 

(WBRC) -- January 2, 2017, a cold rain fell across the sloping cemetery at Crestview Memorial Gardens in Adamsville, about a 25-minute drive northwest of Birmingham. I was one of a dozen people huddled under a green tent for the graveside service for Jamie Lee Wallace. 

I was invited by Wallace’s uncle, David Bazzell, the half-brother of Jamie’s late father, Michael Wallace, who had died at age 47 from health problems 10 months prior. Bazzell knew I had covered issues in Alabama prisons, and was concerned that the story surrounding Jamie’s life and death would be buried along with him. Bazzell seemed to have mixed feelings about his nephew, but in the aftermath of his death, admitted that he wished he was closer to him. 
 
“Just because he had problems, does not mean he wasn’t a human being,” Bazzell told me.