A photo of Brayan Rayo Garzon who died by suicide while in ICE custody in April 2025, is displayed in his mother's apartment in St. Louis, on Friday, May 1. AP-Yonhap
Brayan Rayo Garzon was distraught. Detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he was on his fourth day of isolation in a Missouri jail as he battled the fevers and chills of COVID-19.
His request for mental health treatment had been put off, records show, and staff had forbidden Rayo from making his nightly call to his mother as a precaution intended to prevent the spread of illness.
He pleaded with his jailers in handwritten notes to arrange a conversation with her. “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me,” he wrote in Spanish.
A guard collected the note and walked away. Within an hour, jail records show, he was found unconscious in his cell. An autopsy determined he killed himself.
