-courtesy of Montgomery County Journal
Category: News Article
Valley Experts Refute Md. Suicide Ruling
October 30, 1994|by TERESA ANN WILLIS, The Morning Call
Thanks to the persistence of a Bethlehem private investigator, a Maryland woman now knows the truth about her son.
He probably didn’t hang himself from a tree July 31, 1986, as police said in Montgomery County, Md.
The results of an autopsy performed in May determined that Keith Warren, 19, had a lethal amount of chemical solvent in his system, and that it was unlikely that he hanged himself, said Dr. Isidore Mihalakis of Bethlehem, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy.
“I don’t believe there is enough time, given the widespread distribution in his system of the 1,1, trichloroethane to have hung himself,” Mihalakis said. “To write it off as a suicide, in my personal opinion, is totally incorrect.”
The chemical 1,1 trichloroethane is used in things such as glue, varnishes and paint and can be extremely intoxicating as well as deadly, Mihalakis said. There was no evidence, such as paint cans or rags with glue on them, where Warren was found hanging to indicate that he had ingested chemicals, Mihalakis said.
“This is something I’ve been waiting for, wanting for,” said Warren’s mother, Mary Couey, from Silver Spring. “I feel relieved in some aspects because I knew from day one that Keith did not hang himself.”
Couey has been trying to get police to reinvestigate her son’s death for eight years, ever since she recovered from the shock.
Couey was jolted by Warren’s death and the shock of having his body sent to a police-chosen funeral home and embalmed before she was notified.
Suspicious of how the case was handled, Couey, 46, said she begged for an autopsy but was repeatedly told her son’s body had been embalmed and there could be no autopsy.
After spending two years trying to get police to cooperate, Joe Alercia, a Bethlehem private investigator, had the body exhumed from a family burial ground in North Carolina and an autopsy performed.
Alercia said he wanted additional testing to make sure poisons found in Warren’s body could in no way be traced to embalming fluids.
Montgomery County police received a copy of the autopsy report Wednesday and sent it to the medical examiner’s office for review.
“If the medical examiner feels there is some discrepancy between the autopsy and the outcome of our investigation (in 1986), we will review that and reopen the case,” said officer Evelyn Cahalen of the Montgomery County police.
Couey said she sent a letter to the Maryland attorney general asking for help after the autopsy report came in.
Her crusade has garnered local and national media attention focusing on the unusual aspects of the case.
The tree where Warren’s body was found has apparently been destroyed, a bicycle accident in 1992 killed a witness in the case and five photographs of Warren’s body hanging from the tree landed mysteriously on Couey’s doorstep on her dead son’s 25th birthday.
“Even though I had to go out of the system to get to this point, to know that people believed in me enough to pursue this with me has given me the warmest feeling,” said Couey.
“If I can ever get this behind me, I want to repay all those people.”
Alercia, who was referred to the case by a Washington, D.C., attorney, has to date worked for Couey free of charge
February 11, 2002
TONIGHT THE I-TEAM HAS LEARNED THERE HAVE BEEN NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN ONE OF THIS REGION’S LONGEST-RUNNING MYSTERIES: WHO, IF ANYONE, KILLED KEITH WARREN?
HIS BODY WAS FOUND HANGING IN RURAL MONTGOMERY COUNTY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. FIVE YEARS LATER, THE POLICE AUTOPSY PHOTOS MYSTERIOUSLY ARRIVED ON HIS MOTHER’S DOORSTEP, AND INTO THE POSSESSION OF THE I TEAM.
NOW A DECADE LATER, IT APPEARS THE LAST CHAPTER MAY HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.
Story:
IT IS ONE OF WASHINGTON’S MOST PERPLEXING MYSTERIES.
DID KEITH WARREN COMMITT SUICIDE, OR WAS HE MURDERED?
AS THE I-TEAM FIRST REPORTED NEARLY A DECADE AGO, HIS BODY WAS FOUND HANGING FROM A TREE IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY. TODAY, KEITH WARREN WOULD BE THIRTY FOUR YEARS OLD.
Mary Couey, Keth Warren’s mother: “I have to keep seeking justice until there are some answers.”
NOW, AS WAS THE CASE A DECADE AGO, KEITH WARREN’S MOTHER BELIEVES HER SON WAS MURDERED.
Couey: “Oh, it was definitely not suicide. I think it could have been a murder, it could have been homicide, but it was not suicide.”
SHE CONTIUES TO POINT TO THE I-TEAM’S ORIGINAL FINDINGS: THAT NO AUTOPSY WAS PERFORMED, WARREN’S ORIGINAL CLOTHES WERE CHANGED, AND THE KNOT USED IN THE HANGING APPEARED TO BE BACKWARDS.
IT WAS THE I-TEAM’S INVESTIGATION THAT LED THE FAMIKLY TO EXHUME WARREN’S BODY, WHERE ELEVATED TOXINS WERE DISCOVERED INSIDE HIS BODY, LEADING SOME TO CONCLUDE HE HAD INDEED BEEN MURDERED.
BUT THAT WAS LONG AGO. NOW THE I-TEAM HAS LEARNED THERE IS NEW LIFE IN CONNECTION WITH THE WARREN CASE. SPECIFICALLY, A GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION EXAMINING SEVERAL QUESTIONS. AMONG THEM, THE ISSUE OF MURDER VERSUS SUICIDE, AND ONE NEW TWIST – DID THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT BOTCH THE CASE ENTIRELY, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO SOLVE?
Del Walters: “Does it bother you that if Keith Warren did not take his own life, then there’s someone out there who comitted murder?”
Doug Gansler, Montgomery County State’s Attorney: “Yes.”
IN THIS EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE I-TEAM, MONGTROMERY COUNTY STATE’S ATTORNEY DOUG GANSLER CONFIRMED A GRAND JURY HAS INDEED BEEN LOOKING AT THE KEITH WARREN CASE.
Gansler: “We looked at all the material, along with the sheriff, Ray Kight, and decided to reopen the case.”
Gansler: “We reopened the case, we used the grand jury, we examined all the leads, we talked to all possible witnesses, and came to a conclusion of inconclusiveness.”
Del Walters: “Is the final, bottom line in this case going to be that we just don’t know what happened to Keith Warren?”
Gansler: “There are very strong arguments, having looked at everything in this case, that Keith Warren died of suicide. But there are equally strong arguments to suggest that he did not die of suicide, that he was killed or died accidentally and then was put on this tree afterwards.”
HE ALSO SAYS THE LIKELY CONCLUSION WILL NOT PLEASE POLICE, AND WILL DO EVEN LESS TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY.
Del Walters: “Is it your opinion that the police botched this investigation?”
Gansler: “Under today’s guidelines and procedures, this would have been botched.”
Del Walters: “Would you be satisfied if the police simply said, ‘We blew it?'”
Couey: “They botched it from day one. That’s the problem – it was a botched investigation, and then they attempted to cover it up.”
Del Walters: “It’s been fifteen years… when does Mary Couey stop?”
Couey: “When my last breath is gone. And then I’ll pass it on. It won’t stop until there is justice.”
Del Walters on-set:
AND SO IT SEEMS CLOSE TO A DECADE AFTER THE I-TEAM DISCOVERED THESE CHILLING PHOTOS, THE QUESTION REMAINS: DID KEITH WARREN TAKE HIS OWN LIFE AS POLICE ORIGINALLY THOUGHT, OR IS THERE STILL A MAN ON THE LOOSE IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY WHO GOT AWAY WITH MURDER AS THE EVIDENCE NOW SUGGESTS?
SADLY, THE BOTTOM LINE SEEMS TO BE THE CASE OF KEITH WARREN WAS BOTCHED FROM THE BEGINNING, AND WILL FOREVER REMAIN UNSOLVED.
Keith died in Silver Spring, Maryland in 1986, one month away from starting college. Paramedics found Keith in a wooded area behind the family townhouse, hanging from a tree by the neck, bent double with his weight. After a very brief investigation, the authorities
concluded that Keith had committed suicide and closed the case despite the fact that the rope was tied around the bigger tree to support the smaller tree, and the fork in the tree through which the rope was pulled was at least 18 ft. high. How can a suicide victim tie ropes around two separate trees and hoist themselves up? There was no suicide note nor any other evidence
for the officer to rule it a suicide. The officer released the body to the funeral home of his choice, which embalmed the body. It took the officer five hours to notify Keith’s mother that he was dead, even though he had her work address and phone number. A witness says that before Keith’s death, a car full of suspicious characters were looking for him, the type of individuals Keith did not associate with. Several days later and the night before Keith’s body was found, another man was desperately looking for Keith by the name of Mark Finley.
A month later the Warren family had returned home from an outing. One of the relatives wanted to see the tree in the back, where Keith was found. When they arrived at the spot, the tree had been cut down without the family’s knowledge by the police (who admitted cutting it down and were holding it for evidence). Two years later the police disposed of the tree. On Keith’s birthday in 1992, six years after Keith died, his mother came home from work and found a large manila envelope on her doorstep. The envelope contained five official police photos, which showed different angles of Keith hanging by the neck, wearing someone else’s clothing. The personal items and clothing the family received in 1986 was not the same clothing Keith was wearing when he went missing. Someone knew the right items to give the family and destroyed the other clothes. At the time of Keith’s death, a police officer gave the family his boots. In the photos of Keith hanging, he was wearing athletic shoes which he did not own. The family hired a private investigator who was instrumental in having the body exhumed. The independent forensic pathologist which the family hired found high levels of TCE (potent chemical found in glue and solvents) in his body. Keith had so much of this chemical in his body, he couldn’t even have been conscious enough to string himself up in the tree. The forensic pathologist stated, “I believe Keith Warren’s death being listed as a suicide is medically not supportable.” The Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office claimed that TCE and other chemicals were injected into Keith’s body with the embalming fluid. However, the forensic pathologist and other professionals did research that proved two chemicals in Keith’s body are not contained in any embalming fluid, and that the distribution of the chemicals in Keith’s body were not consistent with post-mortem injection. Several years later, the Sheriff’s office received a tip that someone slipped something into Keith’s drink at a party, and dressed him in the wrong clothes. We believe that since Keith’s family was not given the opportunity to do an autopsy prior to embalming, the least the Medical Examiner’s office can do is change the death certificate from “suicide” to “undetermined.”
Keith’s friends who were interviewed by a private investigator all said they saw no signs of Keith being suicidal nor being heavily involved in drugs. Also the paramedic who arrived to the original crime scene prior to the police officer wrote and signed a notarized document that he did not believe Keith’s death to be a suicide. There is a copy of the document on this site as well as on Facebook.
Along with the pictures, Keith’s mother received a note which said, “Ms. Warren, don’t worry, Mark Finley will be next.” Finley was an associate of Keith’s. Finley found out about the threatening note and contacted Keith’s mother, “Ms. Warren, I will be by to see you, I need to unload.” Finley was also rumored to have bragged at several parties after Keith’s body was found in 1986, that he helped put Keith in the tree. One month later, before he could visit Ms. Warren, Mark Finley was found dead. According to police, Finley died accidentally when his bike struck a curve and he was thrown from the bike at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. The ambulance crew was interviewed by the private detective and they said the damage to Finley did not fit the accident. The damage to his face look like someone hit him with a baseball bat. This case was never reopened and remains closed. Keith’s sister and a handful of friends have launched a Facebook campaign to bring awareness to this situation.
Sherri’s (Keith’s sister) question is, “If you think about it, who holds the entities that hold us accountable for our actions, accountable for theirs?” The thought and premise is to use the network and web to update the situation, to show how the state of Maryland local and state government everyday for the last 25 years have allowed someone to get away with murder and turned their backs on the family. It is also to let those involved know that the family and friends are not going away. We are in desperate need of support in getting the cause of death changed from suicide to homicide. This situation could happen to you or someone you know. You have a black man strung up on tree in 1986, you have physical evidence that was admittedly destroyed by local law enforcement, you have an additional questionable death surrounding this situation, and you have crime scene photos which clearly show evidence of cover-up. What more would you need if you were in law enforcement to re-investigate, re-open or at the least care about Keith Warren. The family and friends of Keith Warren are working hard to put as much information out to show that this is not speculation but FACT! The family needs YOUR help in getting the information out to those in the national media. The family is open to any and all suggestions. The family believes the local media is hesitant to cover this story due to political connections. That is why now we have to step outside the State of Maryland and show how utterly ridiculous it is for the Maryland judicial system to continue to ignore this situation, hoping it will go away. There are other victims of the Maryland State Medical Examiner in the 1980s and 1990s and we will find them and join with them to expose the inaccuracy and laziness of that office. We want everyone to know that as you sit comfortably in your house, office, car or wherever you may be, you are just a moment in time from your life being changed and damaged by those sworn into office to protect and serve. Whether or not the police were directly involved, why won’t they try to do right? Their silence is just as damaging as the crime of putting Keith on the tree. I invite you to review the information. There is much information that shows that suicide is NOT the TRUTH! This story was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries and Jet Magazine, and Ms. Mary was interviewed several times on the local ABC news channel 7. There is a Facebook (Keith W Warren) campaign to get this case re-opened and re-investigated. Ms. Mary (Keith’s mom) passed in 2009. The last 23 years of Mrs. Mary’s life, Sherri watched her mom try to get help from those who are in the position to give it. But all she got was ignored and disrespected. This July will be the 25th anniversary of Keith’s death. Maybe you can explain why the Montgomery County Police Department and the State of Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office will not help the family and re-open this case. We appreciate your time and energy.
Keith Warren Justice Site 
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