My daughter has been on my butt to watch the Hulu docuseries on this case. I say this NOT having followed this case or watched the docuseries, so maybe once I catch up this will make more sense to me, but what on earth made authorities think this was a suicide to begin with? The amount of stab wounds is excessive, and half appear to have entered her from behind so how in the heck does one land at suicide in that sort of circumstance??
IMO, and I may not have every detail correct, but essentially this: Ellen's boyfriend (actually fiancee) at the time is from a wealthy family who apparently also have some perhaps powerful connections in this community. He has an uncle who is an attorney. He called his uncle from the scene (of the crime, imo) and this uncle came straight over there. If I recall correctly, the uncle was responsible for having the scene cleaned up in record time, not just of blood etc., but also of a laptop and seems like other things, but the laptop is what I distinctly remember.
Anyway, so it's also known that this attorney knows his state's governor personally, and made calls to him about this. I don't know if the governor has made any statements about this.
OK, so then when her body was autopsied, the coroner relied on the usual things you'd expect him to rely on to make out the official report, namely the visible injuries he noted in his examination of her body, and LOGIC! Which is why he entered "homicide" and not "suicide" in manner of death. It sounds like from your post that you didn't realize that that happened. But yes, the ORIGINAL manner of death upon initial autopsy findings given in the original report, was never "suicide". It was CHANGED from homicide to suicide after "someone" had a talk with the ME (or coroner, whichever they have there).
Now I don't recall all the facts that are actually known about this part. First off, I've forgotten how much time passed before the report was changed to say it was a suicide. And I know that the general consensus is that some powerful (political) people exerted their influence into this case on behalf of the boyfriend and his family which resulted in the report being changed to label this a suicide. And that's what I too believe happened. But I don't know if there is actual evidence of this or if that's what people just figured out by looking at the facts of the case. I'd like to know if this can be proven. It shouldn't have to be. It's obvious this happened, imo. But it always looks better if you can come with receipts, as they say.
I just can't understand how a coroner, whose reputation and career assurance relies on their integrity and consistency in providing valid, unbiased, accurate, objective findings and reports, would falsify any reports or enter inaccurate data on official documents, or allow themselves to be influenced for any reason by some individual/s, powerful or not. That would be risking their career. Their reputation and integrity would be at stake here. What could possibly have persuaded them? Were they bribed?? Were they related? Were they threatened?
I figure it'll just turn out to be as simple as that they were pressured to do it, with someone dropping the governor's name as backup, or even with a call from governor himself, and they agreed even against their better judgment, because they "knew" no one was ever going to be giving this a second glance. They knew they wouldn't be questioned, they knew they could get away with it, because it was going to all be swept under the rug, and it would all go away with no one having to ever answer for any questionable thing they might do. Their authority would be accepted, as always.
But they didn't count on Ellen's parents being so adamant and persistent. But that also is confusing to me, because they knew the parents would be able to read the details of the autopsy. Those are always available to the family of the deceased, right? But if they knew the details would be known, why wouldn't they expect to be questioned by the family? Especially when they were trying to say it was suicide. Families often find it hard to believe or even refuse to believe their loved one killed themself, maybe even when they were found with a GSW to the head and the gun nearby and gunshot residue on their hand, maybe even when there's a suicide note right there! It's just often a very hard thing to accept, so people sometimes won't accept it. A lot of people would rather find out they'd died in an accident than by suicide. That's a pretty common feeling, imo. So why wouldn't the coroner worry that putting "suicide" on the report would cause problems, especially in this case, when the details of her death are as horrendous as we know them to be? And when they knew the parents would read these?
So I don't understand that. Why would the coroner have just changed the manner of death to such a controversial and heartbreaking-to-the-family, and contrary-to-the-medical-findings manner as suicide when that should come with major risk to their career and reputation? Was this coroner involved in any other scandals or controversial findings, etc.? Did they just not care? No integrity?
I hope they're finally all doing the right thing on this case. Bring the guilty party to justice finally. But first, the simplest action they could take - change the manner of death.
