Pathologist offers new theory on Shannan Gilbert's death
By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
on February 12, 2016 at 1:20 PM, updated February 12, 2016 at 5:36 PM
[...]
Baden says he reviewed a medical examiners' reports and photographs sent to him by John Ray, the Gilbert family attorney. He said he also examined skeletal remains, finding Gilbert's larynx and parts of the hyoid bone in the neck missing.
"These structures, the larynx and the hyoid bone, are often fractured during homicidal manual strangulation," he wrote.
There is insufficient information to determine a definite cause of death, he added.
Autopsy: Slain New Jersey sex worker possibly strangled
FRANK ELTMAN, The Associated Press
Posted: Friday, February 12, 2016, 5:04 PM
[...]
Although detectives have long maintained that Gilbert's death is unrelated to the killings of 10 others along Ocean Parkway in suburban New York, John Ray, an attorney for the Gilbert family, said Friday that an independent autopsy suggests the 24-year-old Jersey City, New Jersey, woman may have been strangled.
[...]
Ray subsequently asked noted forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden to conduct an independent review.
Baden found that while "there is insufficient information to determine a definite cause of death," the autopsy findings "are consistent with homicidal strangulation." Baden's letter to Ray also said there is no evidence "that she died of natural disease, of a drug overdose or of drowning."
Ray said at a press conference with Gilbert's mother and sisters that he has requested the Suffolk County homicide squad re-activate the investigation into the woman's death.
Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said in a statement Friday that detectives are waiting to review Baden's findings. Sini announced in December that the department has brought in FBI investigators to assist local detectives with the probe.