Suicide vs Murder

A man whose remains were found chained to a tree in a wooded area in Needham last Wednesday apparently committed suicide, authorities said yesterday.

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Authorities, who initially were investigating the death as a homicide, determined that the body had not suffered any blows such as those from a blunt instrument or a knife. In addition, investigators learned of Glawson's homelessness and his previous attempts at suicide, officials said.

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There comes a time when any Boston criminal defense attorney is knocked almost speechless.

Almost.

Fortunately, this one can still write when that happens. It would appear that the law enforcement entities have come together and resolved several of the questions posed in yesterday’s Boston Criminal Lawyer Blog. The solution, though, reminds me of a famous escape scene from the movie “Blazing Saddles”, when the hero of the story, a black sheriff, is out-gunned and he puts his own gun to his head and says, “Make one move and the (“N-word&#8221 get’s it!”

On the other hand...anything is possible.

I am referring to the findings announced yesterday by the Suffolk County District Attorney that 19-year old, apparently Cape Veridan, Manuel D. (hereinafter, the “Deceased&#8221 shot himself in the head, killing himself, because police officers wanted to talk to him.


Let me state at the onset that I was not there at the scene and I represent nobody in the matter. I do have a quarter-century of experience in the criminal justice system, though, which includes time spent on both sides of the aisle. I have also served as such, on both sides, in both the state of New York and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I gotta admit...this kinda troubles me and I think makes the admonition I made at the end of yesterday’s blog even more dire.

According to District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, the Deceased put his own gun to his head and fired amid the gunfight with police. Police officials state that they hope this finding will settle anxiety among the area’s Cape Verdean community over the use of deadly force.

The DA explained that a preliminary investigation shows that the Deceased had exchanged gunfire with officers and a state trooper assigned to the Youth Violence Strike Force, and that at one point he “reloaded his weapon, put the gun to his head, and shot himself.”

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“What questions does it raise?”

Well, some of the immediate ones include, “If he’d been shot in his hand, hip and chest, how was he able to, amid gunfire, reload, decide to shoot himself (never mind “why&#8221 and perform the deed in so short a time?”, “Why did the police ‘find’ the Deceased’s gun and why did they pick it up instead of letting a crime scene unit do so?”, “Whose fingerprints, if any, were found on the gun?”, and, of course, “Wouldn’t this cause of death be fairly obvious to the medical examiner?”

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Norfolk County's medical examiner has concluded that well-known Weymouth restaurateur John Pica Sr. took his own life, and was not murdered as first suspected.

Pica, 69, the owner of the Venetian Restaurant on Broad Street, was found early April 25 in the restaurant parking lot next to his black Cadillac. He had been shot twice in the stomach and once behind the ear.
Weymouth police recovered a small-caliber gun near Pica's body and initially pursued a murder investigation. But this week, Medical Examiner Peter J. Leahy ruled the case a suicide.

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TORONTO — The coroner’s office in Quebec wants Brazilian authorities to share their files from boxer Arturo Gatti’s initial autopsy and the police investigation into his death.


Genevieve Guilbault, a spokeswoman for the coroner’s office, said Monday that the office had asked Canada’s federal government to get involved and request documents from the first autopsy and other files describing the scene where Gatti was found.

Gatti’s death in Brazil on July 11 was ruled a suicide last week, after Brazilian police initially said the Canadian boxer and two-time world champion had been slain and that his wife, Amanda Rodrigues, was the prime suspect.

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Dr. Phail said:

Pala quoted: "Molly Bish said she was not to blame for the mix-up with the bones."


Man, I've messed up at some jobs....stuck a pizza to a wall, accidentally locked myself in a freezer but I ain't never mixed up no bones.

Never even been accused of mixing up bones. Never had to tell anyone that I didn't mix up no bones.


Man.....I feel for this Molly girl.


Sucky day at work man.

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raeann said:

I will have to go back and look at the link, but the reporter in this case must be as bad at mixing up things as the ME office, because MOLLY BISH is a murder victim....huge thread on here about her somewhere. Unless by coincidence there is an employee by the exact same name, something is messed up with their article.

jmoo

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Let me bring something to this discussion based on direct communication with a parent who sat in on a police interview of their kid. I was told the SHPD detective did most of the questioning while the State Police investigator was at the computer making many notes. It was estimated approximately 70% of the questions were related to Phoebe’s behaviors and state of mind.
I was convinced at that point that the investigation was being conducted in a way to prove Phoebe had “emotional problems” or whatever you want to call it, in order to sweep this under the rug. This made me really left with no confidence there would ever be charges filed.

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The questioning that CF described was handled by a local cop and federal investigator together. While the local cop kept pushing the “what was Phoebe’s state of mind” line and asking about alleged suicide attempts, the Fed was only interested in the actual crimes that ended up in the charges. So the good/bad cop thing made sense to me at the time which I told the parent involved and CF and I have discussed many times. We were on opposite sides of that one, as I kept saying “Just wait,” and he thought it was going away. In retrospect I think they were checking to see how those themes played so they’d know how they’d play in getting indictments.

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A SUBSEQUENT POST MORTEM VIEW OF HER BODY, BY THE MEDICAL EXAMINER.; DR.. ANDREW W. SEXTON, WAS CONDUCTED ON JANUARY 15TH• DR. SEXTON RULED THE CAUSE OF PHOEBE PRINCE'S DEATH WAS ASPHYXIA DUE TO HANGING AND THE MANNER OF HER DEATH WAS SUICIDE .. INVESTIGATORS HAVE SINCE ESTIMATED HER TIME OF DEATH TO BE BETWEEN 2:48 P.M. AND 4:30 P.M. ON JANUARY

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Kris said:

Hey Paladine, I was just going back through your earlier posts and caught this"



Well, no duh!! They simply stated the time between her last text and the time she was discovered. How incompetent are these people? Thanks again Paladine for doing all that research. It's really eye opening how negligent the system is there. If it were just one article from many years ago, then their incompetence would be arguably intermittent. However with articles as near back as 2009, one could say it's chronic. As far as Phoebe's death it sounds like perhaps someone had suggested suicide to the coroner and he followed suit, or maybe even had one of the technicians perform the autopsy, then signed off on it. Just another possibility, albeit after reading those articles, a very strong possibility. It could have happened as casually as this:

Coroner: "What do we have here?"
LE or Tech: "15 year old female, apparent suicide by hanging". (Le or tech possibly gives some other background info, like bullying involved)
Coroner: "Oh, OK, well I'll look at her tomorrow."

The coroner then see's the ligature marks, possibly remembers the other headlines of the 13 year old who hung herself due to bullying (or other cases of suicide involving bullying that made the news), and simply says "yep, suicide"

Again, just saying, a very likely scenario.

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OrdinaryLife said:

Dr. Andrew Sexton is the Medical Examiner in Holyoke, MA. Unless they transferred Phoebe Prince's body to Boston, her autopsy would have been done there. I have found nothing (Googled myself silly, but I may have missed something) that it was done in Boston. Yes, there have been many issues regarding the Examiner's office. Disturbing to say the least. However, I can't lump one autopsy into the mess that they have in Boston to this area of the State. Holyoke is around 90 minutes away from the city. Nestled very near the Berkshires.

The timing of death, unless someone professional was there to witness and verify it to the moment of death, is the best that can be guessed at according to what the circumstances, body temp, and the last contact the she had that afternoon.

We can disagree about the "what if's", but I'm not so sure about incompetence. I just do not see it.

imvho

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Paladine said:

The State Medical Examiner has different offices in different towns, including Boston and Holyoke. They operate under the same authority and leadership and, one would think, would have the same policy. A point to consider.

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OrdinaryLife said:

They may have the same policy, but it is the people that make or break it. Boston is a perfect example of broken. I know hospitals that are of a group partnership. Several are horrible while the remaining others make it happen in care. I don't think a book should be judged by it's cover....

(Hi! )

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Paladine said:

Hey...

I'm tired...lol.

Everyone can take it, or leave it, for what they wish but it doesn't make me feel all fuzzy inside.

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Phoenixfla said:

Kris brought up some a good points in the other thread.

1. The length of the scarf. Would it be difficult to have enough length to tie both ends.
2. She had just gotten that scarf from her sister for christmas, from what I understand. It would seem that she would choose another item to use.
3. Location - if you look in the photo thread, you can see that the rear staircase is outside and in a very open location. One would not think that she would choose that location if she did not want to be discovered by her younger sister, or other siblings. The open location also works against the murder theory, as it would have been more apt for someone witnessing a murder.
4. She had plugged her phone in to charge.

I think it is unlikely that it was a murder, but I would not exclude the possibility. Dont want to sound morbid, but it would be nice if someone examined the way the scarf was tied as it would probably be tied different if it was a suicude as opposed to a murder. Just some things to think about.:waitasec:

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