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THE UNEASY DEATH OF FLORENCE GRIFFITH JOYNER[/SIZE] [SIZE=-2]
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[SIZE=+1]T[/SIZE]he Orange County Sheriff-Coroner's office began its investigation into Joyner's death after a 911 call by her husband just after 7 a.m. on Sept. 21. Investigators' notes describe the scene at the Joyners' two-story house on Bluejay Street in Mission Viejo as "very cluttered and unkept [sic]." Joyner was "in upstairs bedroom supine on carpeted floor next to bed. Bed is unmade and area where [Joyner's] face was when she was disc[overed] by husband is wet. ([Joyner] was originally [found] face down into pillow in bed ... Arms are bent at elbows w/hands up near shoulders. Eyes are open. Hands are
not clenched [emphasis in original]. Mouth is open slightly. [No] trauma obs[erved]." One of her trademark fingernails, on her left ring finger, had been broken; another broke during fingerprinting of the body.
Deputy Coroner Leslie Meader began her investigation at 8:45 a.m. During the first interview, the deceased's husband, Al Joyner, said he had last seen his wife alive at 2 a.m., when she went to bed. He then watched television for a while and went to bed himself, and found her apparently dead some time after 6:30. He attempted to resuscitate her, then called 911, and resumed efforts to revive his wife. Joyner was pronounced dead on the scene, and Meader said the likely time of her death was 4 a.m.
Autopsy surgeon Richard Fukumoto started his work just before noon. He began his initial report with a description, oddly poignant, of the flamboyant track star's famous nails:
"The hands show long false fingernails, painted in various colors from red to blue, with the long nail on the left side having designs and the one on the left middle finger having the initials FGJ. The toenails are likewise painted with purplish polish."
Within a half hour, Fukumoto came to the findings that would lead him to call homicide investigators: petechial hemorrhages in the chest, neck, eyes, cheeks and breasts, and Tardieu's spots on the chest wall. Both petechial hemorrhages and Tardieu's spots can be evidence of strangulation. Fukumoto immediately stopped the autopsy, waiting for the arrival of personnel from the sheriff's crime lab and homicide investigators. The autopsy then proceeded with homicide detectives present, and at its conclusion Fukumoto was unable to determine a cause of death. The investigation continued, with Joyner's death officially labeled "questioned."
That evening sheriff's deputies reinterviewed Al Joyner, who changed his original story slightly. Instead of watching television and going to bed after seeing his wife alive at 2 a.m., he actually went to his office, he told them, which "was not unusual," according to case notes. "He would often go to his office at night because he could get more work done without the phone ringing," Joyner told the deputies. He revealed he had found his wife face down with her own hands under her neck, which could account for the hemorraging discovered there.
Al Joyner declined to speak with Salon about this story. His attorney, Paul Meyer, refused to comment on the discrepancies between Joyner's first and second versions of his whereabouts on the night his wife died. "We don't have any comment. We're not going to rehash or relive that difficult process. Grieving is a long process and Mr. Joyner appreciates the privacy he's been afforded so he can work this through," Meyer told Salon.
Joyner also told the deputies about his wife's history of seizures and "zoning out," though at that point there is no mention in the notes that she suffered from epilepsy. Four days later, on Sept. 25, homicide investigators learned from "a family attorney" that Joyner had a grand mal seizure in 1990. Follow-up investigation at several hospitals revealed she had been treated for seizures in 1990, 1993 and 1994.
In the following weeks, tests continued to try to determine a cause of death. Examinations of Joyner's heart, lungs, brain and other organs revealed a few abnormalities, but nothing consistent with Fukumoto's original suspicion of strangulation. No fractures to bones or cartilage in the neck were discovered.
Speculation continued in the media about Joyner's use of steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, and how they might have contributed to her death. But drugs and foul play were not the only possible suspects. According to coroner's office case notes, advocates for other causes saw their own pet issues in the track star's sudden demise. A representative of the Chemical Injury Network called the coroner to suggest Joyner had died as a result of insecticide poisoning. A doctor who heads the AntiDairy Coalition also phoned to say a dairy allergy might have caused Joyner's death. There was another call from a woman suggesting Joyner had died of Lyme disease.
Finally, on Oct. 22, a month and a day after Joyner died, the sheriff-coroner's office released an amended cause of death. Changing the original document, which listed "pending investigation" under "immediate cause," the new document listed three causes:
1) positional asphyxia 2) epileptiform seizure 3) cavernous angioma, left orbital frontal cerebrum
The third "cause" referred to a brain abnormality discovered during the autopsy that made Joyner subject to seizures. In lay person's terms, the coroner found Joyner had suffocated in her pillow during a severe epileptic seizure.
Experts on epilepsy immediately insisted the finding of death was extremely unlikely. "This is a distinctly unusual complication of an epileptic seizure," Dr. Michael Risinger of the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center told the Los Angeles Times. Interviewed by Salon, Risinger amplified his remarks. "It's true persons can asphyxiate during epileptic seizures. But it's very rare." Risinger wanted to reassure others suffering from epilepsy that Joyner's death was a highly unlikely result of a seizure, he said.
Given the continuing mystery, Salon shared Joyner's autopsy records with pathologists and one of the leading experts on steroid use, who reviewed the coroner's investigation and came to their own conclusions.
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N E X T+P A G E+|[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]
"A compulsive, crazy, lying lunatic"[/SIZE]
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Won't tell ya what I was up to thou:smack:
