Daniel Hanchett said his family is still pushing for criminal charges in connection with the 2022 death of his wife, Shannon, at the Cleveland County Detention Center, including against former and current employees of the private health care contractor TK Health.
TK Health, formerly known as Turn Key Health Clinics, was co-founded by former State Rep. Jon Echols, who is now the Republican nominee for Oklahoma attorney general. Today, the company provides medical care at 143 jails in Oklahoma and 13 other states. The Frontier and The Marshall Project previously published an investigation into deaths at jails that contract with the company for medical care.
Daniel Hanchett appeared at a press conference in Oklahoma City on Monday with Nick Coffey, who is running as a Democrat for state attorney general against Echols.
“I’m concerned that if Mr. Echols is elected, there will not be any accountability, considering many of these people are his employees or former employees,” Daniel Hanchett said.
TK Health said in response to questions that Echols now owns about 2% of the company and is not involved in day-to-day operations. The Frontier also reached out to Echols’ political campaign, but did not receive a response.
Daniel Hanchett’s attorney Dan Smolen said that if elected, Echols would oversee the state multi-county grand jury. The state attorney general has the power to seek criminal indictments against TK Heath employees in connection with deaths at county jails, Smolen said.
“If he’s elected, who decides whether his company gets investigated,” Smolen asked. “Is he going to recuse from those investigations? Is he going to hold his own employees accountable?”
Shannon Hanchett died during a mental health crisis at the jail in December 2022. An autopsy later found that she died from complications of a heart defect, with contributing factors including psychosis “with auditory and visual hallucinations” and dehydration. Daniel Hanchett filed a lawsuit against the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office and TK Health in 2024, accusing the company and county officials of delaying access to medical care.
Cleveland County officials approved a $20-million payment to settle its part of the lawsuit earlier this month, but the case against TK Health continues. The company was dismissed from the original lawsuit, but Hanchett has filed an amended complaint that TK Health has also asked to be dismissed.
“We can’t comment about a case involved in ongoing litigation or cases that haven’t yet been filed,” TK Health said in a written response to questions.
“The TK Health team wants the best outcomes for every patient we serve and for those under the care of other correctional healthcare companies as well,” the company said in response to questions. “We also encourage people to remember that the filing of a lawsuit is not evidence of wrongdoing. Filings contain allegations, not established facts. No jury has ever found TK Health liable in our company’s history.”
The company said the patients it treats in jail are often “extremely sick people who have been without regular access to healthcare, so our job is to stabilize them and get them as well as possible during the often short time they’re in the jail. We also work to connect them with community resources in hopes that they will continue improving their well-being once they leave the jail.”
TK Health stopped providing medical care at the Cleveland County jail in 2025 after it said in a letter it would not renew its contract with the county. The letter did not give a reason.
Sue Gonzalez, the mother of Luis Gonzalez, who died at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in 2022, also appeared at the press conference. She has a pending lawsuit against Oklahoma County and TK Health, claiming her son was not provided adequate medical care. Gonzales died from complications of diabetes, according to records from the state medical examiner’s office.
“He knew because he was diabetic and insulin-dependent they had control over his life,” Sue Gonzales said.
TK Health and the county denied the allegations in court and have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. The company stopped providing medical care at the Oklahoma County jail in 2024, citing chronic security understaffing on the part of the jail that left the company “unable to access patients as necessary to meet Turn Key’s standard of care.”
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