Longtime Clark County jail chaplain dies

Longtime Las Vegas police volunteer and chaplain Bonnie Polley died Friday morning at 83.

Polley volunteered with the Metropolitan Police Department for almost 20 years before accepting a position in 2005 as the religious coordinator and chaplain at the Clark County Detention Center. She died at home of natural causes, according to the department.

“Bonnie was in a perpetual state of giving,” Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Elana Lee Graham said Friday. “She gave time, her emotional capital and she was so loving and a hundred percent pure. No judgment about anything, ever.”

Graham grew up attending Christ Church Episcopal, 2000 S. Maryland Parkway, where Polley was a deacon. Polley baptized Graham, now 38, and her siblings. Polley also baptized Graham’s three children.

Polley grew up in southern Louisiana and attended the University of Colorado, where she met her husband, David. The couple moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1960. She worked as a dental assistant and David went to law school. After having the first of three sons, they moved to Las Vegas.

In Las Vegas Polley had planned to stay at home with her son, but after about three weeks she got bored and took a part-time dental assistant job that soon became full time.

She continued working while having two more children and then moved into a volunteer role placing dental assistants in offices.

In 1974, she had a spiritual awakening and got involved in classes at Christ Church Episcopal.

Her first experience speaking with inmates came in 1980 when a dental office asked Polley for a replacement for a woman she had previously placed in the office.

The woman, Carol Lamb, was sentenced to prison for 25 years for killing her husband. Lamb’s sentence was commuted in 1984, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal archives.

She decided to visit Lamb and they ended up speaking for hours, uninterrupted. Polley said that was when she knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

Graham worked in the Nevada Legislature while in college and would see Polley, who Graham described as an advocate for homeless issues and those living in poverty.

“Bonnie would go up there during the legislative session and she would camp out in a tent in front of the legislative building with some other legislators,” Graham said.

Polley and Graham remained close as Graham became a chief deputy district attorney. Polley poked fun at Graham by saying she broke her heart by not becoming a public defender. Graham would visit with Polley at the jail and the two would go on walks together.

Graham’s father died in February, and Polley was there for the family at the hospital and at their home.

“She would just be there for wherever you needed, whenever you needed it,” Graham said. “That’s going to be hard to come back from. There’s no replicating somebody like Bonnie.”

Graham said her children, now 3, 5 and 7, formed a relationship with Polley who connected with every generation even into her 80s.

“She never tempered her energy with age ever,” Graham said. “She was just so full of life.”

Polley said in 2020 that she enjoyed getting to know the inmates and thought it was important to have people in the jail who treat them like human beings and not judge them for the crimes they’ve committed.

“I’m going to do this for the rest of my life,” Polley, then 81, told the Review-Journal in 2020. “What I find most fulfilling in this job is that I, hopefully, provide hope for people who have lost all hope.”

Polley worked and volunteered for Metro for nearly 40 years, helping other volunteers and inmates to make sure their faith needs were met. She and her husband, who died in 2016, also helped people in the Las Vegas justice system with their court cases.

Through the church, Polley heard about a nonprofit called Friends Outside whose mission was to improve the quality of life of families and communities affected by incarceration. Polley founded a Las Vegas branch and borrowed the Christ Church van and along with volunteers, provided free transportation for the families of inmates at the prison in Jean.

“The loss is going to be felt in a lot of different communities,” Graham said. “Bonnie was more than a person, she was an idea. She was a feeling of security and confidence and support. She was a place for many people … and she was a symbol of totally unconditional love.”

As a deacon, Polley offered “Ashes to Go” on the Strip on Ash Wednesday, most recently in March.

“In a world of uncertainty she was that one constant that always stayed the same,” Graham said.

Information on funeral services hasn’t been announced.

Contact David Wilson at dwilson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @davidwilson_RJ on Twitter.