July 1 2024 rbbm
Teen's body to be exhumed after WWL cold case investigation
The decision to re-examine Brett Wittner comes after ballistics and medical experts reviewed his autopsy and concluded that he was shot twice in the head – not once.
www.wwltv.com
The Washington Parish Coroner’s Office says it will exhume Brett Wittner’s remains next week, and the new sheriff says he’ll be there to support the process and make sure the evidence is thoroughly recorded and preserved''
''Christopher Tape, then a private forensic pathologist near Lafayette and now the embattled elected coroner of the Wittners’ home parish, St. Tammany. He has repeatedly refused to comment on his work examining Brett Wittner three days after his death.
Tape will not be involved when Brett Wittner is exhumed and re-examined next week. Washington Parish Chief Deputy Coroner Paul Thibodeaux said local forensic pathologists were not willing to handle the case because of the publicity of the WWL investigation, but a Texas pathologist with no ties to Tape or Washington Parish has agreed to re-examine him.''
''Donna and her husband, David, visited their son’s grave Monday and eagerly awaited returning for the exhumation, now scheduled for July 10.''
May 2024 rbbm
A death now in question. Did a Covington teen shoot himself?
The pathologist who performed the autopsy on 14-year-old Brett Wittner is the newly-elected controversial coroner, Dr. Christopher Tape.
www.wwltv.com
Investigating authorities accepted witness statements that Brett had shot himself accidentally – with one shot from a .22-caliber long rifle to the right side of his head, above and behind his ear.
An autopsy report backed that up, stating that just one bullet was found inside Brett’s head. The report said the single bullet was shot at contact range and was recovered in a “minimally to moderately deformed” state, from “within (a) skull defect” on the front left side of Brett’s head.
The pathologist claimed that when he pulled back Brett’s scalp to view his cranium three days after the shooting, he found the bullet lodged in the exit wound on the front left of his skull. But in hospital scans taken just three hours after Brett was shot, a bullet is visible in the back of Brett’s head, far from the exit wound location.
Dozens of lead bullet fragments are also visible in the scans, leaving a trail across the bullet’s trajectory through Brett’s brain. A ballistics expert in Sweden who reviewed the scans for WWL Louisiana found those fragments added up to the mass of a whole .22-caliber long rifle copper-plated bullet.
But when the State Crime Lab weighed the bullet the pathologist recovered from Brett’s head, it was 91% of the weight of a whole bullet''.
''Something didn’t add up.
Brett’s mother, Donna, was always focused on the angle of the shot that went through her son’s head. She believed Brett couldn’t have shot himself with a rifle only a few inches longer than his arm with an upward and forward angle behind his ear.''
''The station also looked into concerns about Tape’s work as a private pathologist. WWL collected hundreds of autopsy photographs and brain scan images from Donna Wittner and shared them with leading scientific experts from around the world.
Those experts in ballistics, brain trauma and neuroradiology -- hailing from Sweden, Greece and New Mexico – say Brett was most likely shot twice in the head, not once.''
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