Prairie Region News
(2008-04-28)
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Ron and Mona Ward watch the news conference during which details of the investigation were made public Monday. (FM 89 News photo by Ron Breeding)
The long-questioned death of a teenage girl at party in rural Searcy County nearly two decades ago likely came from choking on some object or a sudden heart attack, a special prosecutor and forensic examiner said Monday, directly challenging her family's claims of murder.
Dr. John Pless said he conducted an examination of more than six hours last year on the body of Olivia "Janie" Ward. He said he found no signs of a beating or a spine severed by a violent blow, keys points of two past autopsies. Because of that, Prosecutor Tim Williamson of Mena told reporters at a news conference that she likely died of a natural cause, not by anyone else's hand. "Neither he nor I could tell you today that Janie Ward was a victim of a homicide, not from any forensic medical report can we say that," Williamson said. "She has no significant soft-tissue or bony structure injuries that in any way indicate she was a victim of homicide."
Williamson presented the findings Monday morning to parents Ron and Mona Ward of Marshall during a two-hour meeting filmed by a television crew for an ABC television show.
Afterward, the two said they could not believe the results of the latest autopsy or that their daughter's death came from natural causes. "If somebody pushed her out of the back of a pickup truck and told us that, yeah, we'd believe that," an emotional Ron Ward told reporters.
On Sept. 9, 1989, sheriff's deputies found the girl's body in the back of a pickup truck surrounded by teenagers in the Marshall town square. Investigators later said she fell backward off a nine-inch-tall porch of a rural cabin while attending a party. The original 1989 autopsy by Dr. Fahmy Malak, then the state's chief medical examiner, concluded that Janie died from hitting the back of her head in a fall, an injury that should have snapped Janie's neck forward. But by 1991, Malak had quit over allegations that he had botched other autopsies. Janie's family questioned the autopsy and later hired Dr. Harry Bonnell, an independent medical examiner, to perform a second autopsy on their daughter's body. After exhuming her body in 2004, Bonnell said a tremendous force snapped Janie's head backward, as if she'd been hit from the front. After the second autopsy, a judge named Williamson as special prosecutor in the case. In August 2007, Janie's body was exhumed for a second time from a Searcy County cemetery for a CT scan and an autopsy by an out-of-state medical examiner and a forensic anthropologist.
Instead of homicide, Pless said Janie might have died of choking, as he found small hemorrhages in her throat in areas where food can become stuck. A sudden heart attack might have caused the death as well, but Pless said Janie's heart was not found in the third autopsy - meaning mortuary workers likely incinerated it with other organs unable to be placed back inside her body after examinations. Williamson said the findings also leave open the possibility that Janie drowned, though both he and Pless said they found no evidence that anyone forced her under water. Paramedics reported finding her clothes wet the night of her death, with sand and leaves clinging to the girl's skin
The Wards contend that, by the time Janie's body arrived at Little Rock for a state autopsy, it was clean and dry. "I'm not saying it's plausible, I'm just saying it's possible," Williamson said. Ron and Mona Ward said they still believe a severe blow killed their daughter, pointing to a fracture along her nose. However, a report by a radiologist at the University of Arkansas suggested that injury likely came after Janie's death. "All of these misunderstandings as I see them in this particular case have to do with people with no experience whatsoever, no training or no expertise, making proclamations about what was found in the first or second autopsy," Pless said. "They will make proclamations about what I found. There's no way around that." As of now, Williamson said investigators continue to interview witnesses and collect evidence. He said a 4,400-page report regarding Janie's death compiled by his office likely would be released by the end of next month. However, he acknowledged that might not signal the end of the case. "It's been like chasing ghosts," the prosecutor said.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
