Woman Inmate Attempts Suicide

A convicted murderer from Ada County was on life support Thursday after trying to hang herself at the state women’s prison.

Sally Joanne Needs, 52, was in critical but stable condition at Bannock Regional Medical Center. She 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, the Idaho Department of Correction said.

Officers cut Needs down, radioed for medical help and, along with two nurses, tried to revive her until emergency medical technicians arrived.

Needs is 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.

She previously had been convicted in California on charges of involuntary manslaughter, escape from prison and robbery.