What happened to Gynnya McMillen?

FAMILY and friends of a 16-year-old girl said their goodbyes at a packed funeral on Tuesday but nobody in attendance knew how the teenager died.
Gynnya McMillen was last seen alive by police on January 10. She spent the night alone in a cell at the Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center in the US state of Kentucky after being picked up over a domestic dispute. When police checked on her the following morning she was unresponsive.

The high school student was in good health and, when found, showed no signs of mistreatment. She had no bruises and no cuts on her body. Police immediately released a statement declaring her death was not the result of homicide or suicide, but that’s about all they said.
“On face value, our detectives didn’t suspect that foul play was involved,” Kentucky state trooper Jeff Gregory said.
“They interviewed anybody that had any contact with her.”
It’s now been more than two weeks since McMillen died and still there are no answers. In a second brief statement, police said the youth “appears to have passed away while sleeping” but admitted a preliminary report “shows no cause or manner of death”.
Her family isn’t buying it. They say it’s unacceptable that a teen can die in police care and nobody can determine the cause.
The death in custody is eerily similar to the death of Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old from Texas who died in a jail cell in July last year. Bland’s death was the result of hanging, described by the local sheriff’s office as “self-inflicted asphyxiation” and a “tragic accident”. Her family said she would never have taken her own life.
On Facebook, McMillen’s sister is calling for a proper investigation. Kentucky Police say they are expediting the process but a full autopsy could take another few weeks.
“We deserve to know what happened to her,” she wrote.
“If there’s nothing to hide, there’s no reason why our questions should be unanswered. This doesn’t even make sense.”
McMillen was picked up on January 10 over what police described as a “domestic incident”, CBS News reported.
It’s not clear how often staff checked on McMillen or why she was in a cell by herself but a spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet said room checks in 15-minute intervals were standard operating procedure unless a room had a camera in it. McMillen’s room had a camera in it and that footage has been passed on to investigators.
On social media, users expressed their disbelief at a lack of answers and their sadness over a young life taken too soon.

A spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice said the last death in custody was in 1999.
Journalist Shaun King wrote a scathing editorial on McMillen’s case in the New York Daily News. He said: “we are all justified in being sceptical”.
“If any type of foul play or negligence lead to the death of Gynnya McMillen, it is highly doubtful that those who were negligent or even criminal in their actions are going to voluntarily be forthcoming about it,” he wrote.
“An enormous amount of trust, over the years, has been given to law enforcement, such that the practice of believing their first version of events became rather standard.
“If any of us expect a law enforcement officer to come out and admit their own wrongdoing, we’re fooling ourselves.”