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Prosecutor says Ward death not a homicide Tuesday, Apr 29, 2008 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - A third autopsy on the body of a Marshall teenager who died nearly 20 years ago showed no signs she died in a homicide, a special prosecutor said Monday. The girl's parents disputed the findings. The cause of death of 16-year-old Olivia "Janie" Ward remains unknown, but an autopsy performed in August found that, contrary to a 2004 autopsy report, Ward did not suffer blunt trauma to the face or a spinal injury, special prosecutor Tim Williamson of Mena said at a news conference. "She has no significant soft-tissue or bony-structure injuries that in any way indicate she was a victim of homicide," Williamson said. Ward may have choked on food, drowned or experienced sudden cardiac arrest, Williamson said. There is no indication she was forcibly choked or drowned, he said. Ward's parents, Ron and Mona Ward, said they continue to believe their daughter was murdered. The Wards have filed a civil suit seeking to have their daughter's death classified as a homicide. "We know what we saw," Mona Ward said. "We saw the bruises. We saw the broken nose. We saw the X-rays of the neck injury. We saw it all." After Janie Ward's death on Sept. 9, 1989, then-state Medical Examiner Dr. Fahmy Malak performed an autopsy and concluded Ward died from neck and spinal injuries she received in a fall. Investigators said Ward had been attending a party with classmates when she fell from a nine-inch porch and hit the back of her head, snapping her neck forward. Malak resigned in 1991, under pressure from families who claimed he had made mistakes in several autopsies. The official ruling on Ward's death was changed later to "undetermined." Ward's parents had her body exhumed in 2004 for a second autopsy by private forensic pathologist Dr. Harry Bonnell of San Diego. Bonnell said at the time he found evidence of trauma to Ward's face and a fractured spine, occurring when her neck was snapped backward, not forward. He concluded she was the victim of a homicide. The state had Ward's body exhumed again in August for a third autopsy and a CT scan. Dr. John Pless of Indianapolis, who was brought in to perform the autopsy, said Monday he found minor bruises but did not find the neck and spinal cord injuries Malak described or the facial trauma and spinal injuries Bonnell described. "In my opinion there is nothing here that would indicate that this was a homicide," Pless said. Ward's spinal cord was broken and a scalpel apparently had cut into her nose, but those happened after death, presumably during a previous autopsy, Pless said. Ward's heart was no longer available for examination at the time of the third autopsy, Pless said. Williamson said Ward's lungs showed signs of possible asphyxiation or drowning. Pless said he would not say the first autopsy was mishandled, because Malak did not have access to the technology now available to pathologists. Williamson said Bonnell's autopsy report was "substandard." "He only took five photographs of her body from a distance of 3 to 8 feet. What we're discussing here in this case are injuries that have to be photographed from four different angles, very close, and have microscopic slide testing done," Williamson said. He added that X-rays Bonnell took were "not very good." Bonnell did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday. Investigators are still interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence, Williamson said. A report of more than 4,000 pages should be released sometime next month, he said. Pless said he understood why the family might not be receptive to the new findings. "The Wards have been told a lot of different things by a lot of different people, and quite frankly they don't know what to believe," he said. Ron Ward questioned why he should accept Pless' findings. "Why is he any smarter than Dr. Bonnell or Dr. Malak?" Ward said. |
