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A man who died in the Box Elder County jail earlier this year took poison pills to kill himself, a police investigation has determined.

Police arrested 45-year-old Rex Iverson, of Bear River, on Jan. 23 in service of a warrant, went through "normal pre-booking procedures and placed [him] in a holding cell while the booking process was completed," according to a Box Elder Sheriff's Office news release sent Wednesday.

At about 1:10 p.m., a deputy spoke with Iverson about the possibility of posting bail, the release said, but when the officer returned about 30 minutes later, he found Iverson unresponsive.

Emergency personnel took Iverson to Brigham City Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

During interviews, police with Brigham City and Cache County learned that Iverson had told multiple people that "if he were ever arrested ... he would ingest a poison — specifically cyanide — to take his own life so that he would not have to go to jail," the release states.

The warrant for Iverson's arrest, according to The Associated Press, was served because he had not paid a 2013 ambulance bill and ignored orders to appear in court.

Chief Deputy Sheriff Dale Ward says deputies try not to arrest people on civil warrants but were unable to resolve Iverson's case any other way.

The people police interviewed after his death "were adamant" that Iverson had access to cyanide poison and stored it in his home, the release said.

Officers found in the home a brown bottle with a handwritten label that said "sodium cyanide," which actually contained strychnine — a poison that impedes normal muscle functionality. They also found unused and empty gel capsules, the release states.

Iverson ingested a fatal amount of strychnine, likely contained in the gel capsules, the release states. The small capsules were small enough that they were not detected during pat-down searches.

"Unless an officer was physically watching Mr. Iverson every second from the time he was placed under arrest," the release said, "[Iverson] could have ingested the poison at any time."

A state medical examiner determined that Iverson's death was caused by strychnine poisoning; the examiner ruled that the manner of death was suicide.

Twitter: @mnoblenews