The Detention Center
Limestone County Jail & Detention Center
- Operated byLimestone County Sheriff's Office — the Sheriff's Office describes a jail division "operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week"
- County publishes a jail nameYes — the FY 2025-26 approved budget names the "LIMESTONE COUNTY JAIL & DETENTION CENTER" and carries a Jail and Detention Center Fund
- Jail locationNorth Tyus Street, Groesbeck (Sheriff's Office address)
- Jail budgetTotal County Sheriff – Jail expense $3,688,501 in the FY 2025-26 approved budget
- VisitationMale inmates Friday and Sunday; female inmates Thursday and Saturday (times published on limestoneso.net)
- Rated capacity213 beds (TCJS inmate population report, 1 Aug 2026)
- Population on 1 Aug 2026114 (53.5% of capacity), per TCJS
- Beds and population, 2026-08114 people held in 213 rated beds
Source: Limestone County FY-25-26 Approved Budget · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
2/10Closed- ✓The jail is named
- ✗Who is in custody — not published
- ✗Beds and daily population — not published
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✗How to post bond — not published
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year builtNot found
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found in full — the FY 2025-26 approved budget carries a fund captioned "CAP - PFC - LCLEC - LEASE FUND" alongside a Capital Projects Fund and a Certificate of Obligation fund; no purchase price or debt total for the jail is published
- Beds213 (TCJS rated capacity, 1 Aug 2026)
Since then
- Not found — the budget distinguishes "UTILITIES - LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER (OLD)" from "UTILITIES - LCLEC - NEW", indicating an older and a newer facility, but no dates or costs are published
The Sheriff
Sheriff Murray Agnew
- Office address912 North Tyus Street, Groesbeck, Texas 76642
- Phone254-729-3278
- Fax254-729-8342
- Emailmurray.agnew@co.limestone.tx.us
- Departmental sitelimestoneso.net, linked from the county page
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Limestone County, Texas — Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The county's own page shows one justice, Jeff Melasky, covering both Precinct 1 and Precinct 3.
County Judge
- Richard Duncan
District Court (77th Judicial District)
- Roy DeFriend
District Court (87th Judicial District)
- Amy Thomas Ward
Justices of the Peace
- Jeff Melasky (Precinct 1, covering)
- Devin Woodall (Precinct 2)
- Jeff Melasky (Precinct 3)
- Ray Jones (Precinct 4)
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-22
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- The approved budget's Jail and Detention Center Fund carries revenue lines for "OPERATIONS CONTRACT /ADMIN FEE", "INMATE HOUSING" and "TELEPHONE COMMISSIONS", all budgeted at zero for FY 2025-26; no contract document and no rate schedule is published, so contracts and fees are both marked no.
- The county's general fund also shows a "JAIL HOUSING CONTRACT" revenue line and a "JAIL CONTRACT MEDICAL REIMB." line without any published contract.
- The budget archive runs FY 2014-15 through FY 2026-27 and is linked from the county home page; the dedicated budget page returned 403 to automated fetches.
- TCJS publishes only agency-wide reports online; a county-specific inspection report must be requested under the Public Information Act.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Jody Goodman, Precinct 2 Micah Anderson, Precinct 3 Stephen Friday, Precinct 4 Bobby Forrest. Meetings the 2nd and 4th Tuesday at 9 a.m., streamed on YouTube.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
No death in the Limestone County jail appears on the state's record since 2016.
Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Limestone County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered