Woman Dies in Contra Costa Detention Within 12 Hours of Arrival

A 59-year-old woman from Rio Vista spent less than 12 hours in custody before her life ended in tragedy. Robbi Lynn Perley was arrested Thursday by the Antioch Police Department on an outstanding DUI warrant, booked into the Martinez Detention Facility at 1:30 p.m., then transferred to the West County Detention Facility in Richmond. Early Friday morning around 12:24 a.m., a deputy conducting routine safety checks found her unresponsive with a ligature around her neck.

Despite immediate life-saving efforts from both deputies and medical staff, Perley was pronounced dead. The speed of events—from arrest to transfer to death in less than half a day—raises urgent questions about screening, monitoring, and crisis intervention in our detention system. When someone enters custody on a substance-related charge, proper mental health assessment becomes critical. Yet the timeline here suggests minimal opportunity for that to have occurred.

The incident has triggered a county-wide law enforcement-involved fatal incident protocol, with both the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office and the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office investigating. That’s the right call—in-custody deaths demand accountability and transparency. But for the people working in these facilities and the community watching from outside, the real conversation needs to go deeper: What’s happening during those first critical hours after booking? Are deputies trained to recognize suicide risk? Do we have enough mental health professionals embedded in these facilities to catch warning signs?

Perley’s death is now part of a troubling national pattern. Jails and detention facilities aren’t prisons—they hold people pre-trial or on minor offenses, many dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, or both. Those hours matter. If you have any information about Perley’s death, the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office is asking you to call (925) 313-2600.