PARIS – An inmate who tried twice this year to commit suicide at the Oxford County Jail was found hanging dead in his cell early Saturday morning, officials said Monday.

Christopher M. Jasud, 32, of Dixfield was found during a routine check at 1:30 a.m., Oxford County Chief Deputy Dane Tripp said. He had hanged himself with a bed sheet tied around a ceiling vent, he said.

The death was ruled a suicide, he said.

Jasud had attempted to end his life twice last spring – once he cut his arms and once he hanged himself – and returned a week ago from a court-ordered mental health evaluation at Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta.

Assistant District Attorney Joe O’Connor said Jasud told examiners at Riverview that he was not suicidal.

Tripp said Jasud was not on suicide watch at the time of his death and was unaware whether Jasud had been in the past.

Corrections officers make rounds of the cells every half hour, and are extra vigilant if inmates are placed on suicide watch, he said.

Tripp said besides notification of the family, jail protocol also requires several agencies to be contacted, including a medical examiner, the District Attorney’s and Attorney General’s offices, and the Department of Corrections.

“I feel sorry for the family to have to go through this,” Tripp said.

Jasud’s attorney, Maurice Porter, said he was not informed of the suicide until Monday morning, when he arrived at the jail to meet with Jasud about his criminal case. He said the District Attorney’s Office told him what had happened.

“It’s very sad that he’s leaving behind a child, a fairly young child, and a family that loved him very much,” he said.

Porter said he had received the results of one of two examinations conducted at Riverview, but was unsure whether he could release them. He said Jasud had returned from Riverview about a week ago.

Jasud pleaded guilty to manslaughter and criminal OUI in 1998 after a car accident on Route 17 in Byron that killed Seth Giberson, 25, of Rumford. Jasud was sentenced to serve five-and-a-half years of a 12-year sentence.

Jasud was sentenced to three months in jail in January 2006 for possessing alcohol and marijuana in violation of his probation.

In March 2006, Jasud’s vehicle crossed the centerline on Route 2 in Dixfield and hit two others, injuring Christine Abbot of Mexico and Nina Langervin of Dixfield. Jasud was critically injured as well.

In August 2006, he was indicted on charges of aggravated assault, aggravated driving to endanger, criminal OUI and operating after suspension in connection with that crash.

He was arrested last April by the Dixfield Police Department on an outstanding warrant related to the charges, as well as a warrant charging him with a probation violation in connection with the 1998 accident. He was facing serving the remaining six-and-a-half years on his manslaughter sentence.