A woman with mental illness died in a south Sacramento creek. Her mom asks: Was it preventable?

Sacramento mother Gail Leisure, pregnant decades ago with her first daughter, daydreamed about meeting her child and imagined how perfect she would be.

“Then she was born,” Leisure said recently of her daughter, Nicole “Zoe” Bueno. “And, it was 10 times what my imagination could come up with.”

Leisure reminisced about her child’s early years one chilly night on a bridge spanning over Morrison Creek in south Sacramento. Just a few weeks ago, a frantic and worried Leisure found her daughter’s dead body floating in the creek’s frigid waters below. She was 35.

“I could tell that she was dead,” Leisure said during a vigil for Bueno. “You just know.”

Sacramento County authorities went to Morrison Creek near Steiner Drive after a woman called 911 and told dispatchers she saw a woman floating in the water, according to The Sacramento Bee’s previous reporting. Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, has said her death wasn’t suspicious.

The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office ruled Bueno’s Dec. 3 death an accident.

Bueno’s family said she struggled with addiction and suffered from schizophrenia. After a recent hospitalization at Heritage Oaks, a psychiatric hospital, Bueno was released from the facility in late November.

But after her hospital release, Leisure said Bueno didn’t stay with her and absconded to Morrison Creek, a place Nicole considered home. Leisure said she tried to coax her daughter to leave the water, but Nicole did not.

Leisure said she called sheriff’s deputies to help when she couldn’t get Nicole to leave, before Leisure left the area herself. Gandhi said deputies went to the creek Nov. 30.

The mother said she never saw Nicole alive again. She found her dead Dec. 3.

Leisure alleged deputies left her daughter in the creek when she asked for their help, instead of putting a ”5150” hold on Nicole and taking her back to the hospital to be safe. The commonly referred to “5150 hold” refers to the California Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 that outlines when a person can be taken involuntarily to a mental health hospital and be held for up to 72 hours.

Gandhi said there are narrow circumstances that allow deputies to place a 5150 hold and that Bueno’s condition didn’t meet that criteria.

He said deputies contacted Bueno outside of the water, and she refused their services when deputies offered voluntary mental health resources and transportation.

Law enforcement must observe a person who is greatly disabled or a grave danger to themselves and others in order to declare a 5150 hold over someone, Gandhi said.

The voices in Bueno’s head won, and made her do things she wouldn’t normally do, said Bueno’s half-sister Lonnie Bueno. Nicole believed she had to be at the creek because it would save everybody, Lonnie said.

It also remains unclear why Heritage Oaks released Bueno, when the family says she still suffered mental health issues. Terrance Dennis, Heritage Oaks’ director of risk management and performance improvement, said in an email the hospital cannot comment on Bueno’s case because of HIPAA, a federal law protecting patient privacy.

Everyone wanted to be around Nicole, Leisure said. She had the ability to be anything because of her beautiful looks, likability and personality, she said.

She had so much potential — her creative nature appeared through her ability to make dresses, Lonnie added.

The Sacramento native lived in New Orleans for many years. Nicole ultimately considered Morrison Creek her home, Lonnie Bueno said. But living under a bridge is no place for anyone, and instinct warned Lonnie something could happen.

Lonnie hopes to raise awareness about the mental health crisis gripping the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, and about one in 25 U.S. adults live with a serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression.

Family and friends tied balloons around the bridge’s fence and lit candles during a December vigil. They prayed Nicole has found peace.

“She was a very beautiful person,” Lonnie Bueno said. “I wanted so much more for her.”

This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 5:00 AM.