Inmate Dies After Hanging Self

Convicted murderer Sally Joanne Needs of Payette was removed from artificial life support and died Saturday, three days after hanging herself at the state women’s prison.

Needs, 52, died at 2:12 p.m. at Bannock Regional Medical Center. Idaho Department of Correction spokesman Mark Carnopis said her death came shortly after her family, on the recommendation of the attending physician, decided not to keep her on life support.

“She apparently had a living will notarized several days before this incident,” Carnopis said. “But nobody, not even her lawyer, can find a copy of it.”

Needs was found in her cell shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday after using parts of her clothing and a small laundry bag issued to inmates to hang herself.

She was serving a life prison sentence for a 1977 first-degree murder conviction. She was found guilty of murdering her husband of two months, Ron Needs, whose partially burned body was found with its head and hands missing just inside the Ada County line.