Man charged in Johnsburg police standoff identified as inmate who died in McHenry County Jail on Tuesday

Timothy Mumford, the 74-year-old Johnsburg man who had been jailed since an overnight standoff with police that ended Nov. 15, has been identified as the inmate who was found unresponsive and declared dead in his cell Tuesday, according to the McHenry County coroner.

Mumford was being held at the jail pending psychological tests, according to court records.

Coroner Michael Rein said his office was called to the jail by the McHenry County Major Investigations Assistance Team to investigate Mumford’s death. An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday.

According to a news release sent late Tuesday from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office – which did not identify Mumford – a 74-year-old inmate was found unresponsive about 4 p.m. Tuesday in a single-person cell.

Corrections officers and Woodstock Fire/Rescue District personnel attempted life-saving measures there, officials said.

Mumford’s death was the third inmate death reported in two weeks.

On Monday, the office announced the death of Randall B. Little, 59, who died Sunday. Suffering from a terminal illness, Little was taken to a hospital Oct. 20 and transferred to hospice care Nov. 13.

Little was charged with attempted first-degree murder of a police officer and other offenses after an April 2022 incident in Harvard.

On Nov. 21, the sheriff’s office reported the death of Sean Grendel, 51, of McHenry. Grendel was found unresponsive in his cell by a corrections officer at the jail in Woodstock and was pronounced dead at the scene by first responders, according to a McHenry County Sheriff’s Office news release.

Last summer, another inmate, Colton Sabo, 31, was found unresponsive in his cell and died at a hospital the next day. But unlike the recent deaths, officials did not release any information about Sabo’s death for weeks.

Johnsburg police were called to Mumford’s home along Fillmore Road about 11 p.m. Nov. 14 for a report that a man had shot a gun inside.

“Officers identified what they believed to be a mental health incident and a standoff began,” authorities said after the standoff ended about nine hours later.

A SWAT team arrested Mumford.

Mumford’s wife had told a dispatcher that her husband had at least 10 guns in the home.

In court, it later emerged that Mumford had suffered from schizophrenia since 1971 and had “episodes” in 1971, 1997 and 2014, according to a prosecutor who said he was relaying to a judge what Mumford’s wife told authorities.

Authorities had upgraded the alleged offenses against Mumford, and he was facing a felony charge of aggravated discharge of a firearm. According to court records, Mumford had shot his gun through a wall, and the bullet entered the room where the victim was located.