Horry County inmate died after her cries for help were ignored, her mother says

The Horry County Sheriff’s Office said protocols for treating inmates with medical issues vary depending on the situation and are set by Mediko, a private contractor that provides medical services in correctional facilities, including J. Reuben Long. Mediko did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We were more than mother and daughter, she was my best friend, she was my world,” Larson said. “I just, I haven’t slept, really slept since it happened. I’m just a basket case. I don’t know how to describe how I feel.”

Ball was born on July 10, 1994, and grew up in Myrtle Beach, attending Myrtle Beach High School, and for a while, the Academy for the Arts, Science and Technology on International Drive.

“Destiny and her mother were thick as thieves,” said Ball’s friend Gail Bullet, who’d known her for about 10 years. “Literally, they did everything together; everything. She’s an amazing mother, she does everything with all of us. She goes the extra mile for us.”

Ball loved to write, take selfies, stroll the beach looking for sharks’ teeth and hang out with friends. Although she was small in stature, at barely 5 feet tall, she was large in spirit.

“She was just outgoing, fun-loving, had a love for life in general,” Bullett said. “Every picture you see, she’s smiling. She’s so abundant with life. Super gorgeous girl, too. She smiled in the rain.”

Ball was bullied when she was younger, her mother said, and she transferred to AAST for a while to get away from it. Some of her writing was published in school publications, Larson added.

“She wrote stories, like children’s stories. She wanted to have some of them published,” her mother said, adding that her daughter had won two school awards for her writing. “But she was a good kid. We just had a lot of bad things happen. My husband passed away and I lost my home. Just one thing led to another. I’m not a bad person, she wasn’t a bad person. I just want some justice for my daughter, I don’t want any other parent to ever have to go through what I’ve gone through.”