PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (CBS12) — For months, the CBS12 News I-Team has been investigating the case of Alysse Steed. Her mother, Mary Beth, found her body in a bedroom at her house a year ago, and has been pushing for answers ever since.
Police in Port St. Lucie and the Medical Examiner ruled her death an accidental overdose, citing fentanyl found in her system. But Mary Beth Steed has a background in nursing and recognized the amount of drugs in her daughter’s system were below therapeutic levels — meaning they were not enough to kill.
She knew something else was to blame for her daughter’s death but felt police were not listening to her concerns. That’s when she called the I-Team, and we have been uncovering new evidence ever since. First, we consulted an independent toxicologist who confirmed the drugs in Alysse’s system were below fatal levels. We reported on the text messages Alysse sent, hours before she was found dead, claiming that her boyfriend was “choking her out.”
After our first story aired, the Medical Examiner revised Alysse’s autopsy, removing the overdose as the cause of death, changing it to “undetermined.”
Now, a new expert is weighing in, and offering a definitive conclusion about what happened to Alysse.
Dr. Bill Smock is a police surgeon in Louisville and an expert witness in strangulation cases, including the George Floyd case. Mary Beth contacted Dr. Smock’s organization, the Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention, to ask him to review the evidence in Alysse’s autopsy.
After he did, Dr. Smock wrote this email to detectives at the Port St. Lucie Police Department: “Detective, I have investigated hundreds of near-fatal and fatal asphyxia deaths. Based on 40 years of experience, I am of the opinion that Ms. Steed was the victim of a homicidal asphyxial act.”
Dr. Smock’s report cited four signs that Alysse was strangled and/or suffocated:
“Significant venuous congestion in the eyes, face, neck and upper chest, which is a sign of external pressure
“Traumatic hemorrhage” to the neck, consistent with strangulation
Trauma to the lip and face, consistent with suffocation
Blunt force trauma to the head
When she saw this update in writing, Mary Beth said it was a mixture of feeling “shock, sadness… and vindication.”
Police in Port St. Lucie acknowledge receiving Dr. Smock’s report, and say the case is still active and open. The Medical Examiner would not tell CBS12 News if this information will cause them to change the cause of death again, to “homicide.”
While Mary Beth waits to see how the investigation develops, she is adding her support to a new law that’s been proposed in California, that could be taken nationwide.
SB 989 would give family members access to more information in death investigations, require more police training to recognize the signs of strangulation, and automatically flag deaths as suspicious when there is a prior history of domestic violence.
Casey Gwinn, the founder of the Alliance for Hope International, says his organization, which runs the Strangulation Institute, is pushing for SB 989 to be passed in California. He hopes to bring the law nationwide.
“Everything you are seeing Alysse’s case is what we are seeing all over America,” Gwinn said. “Every state from Florida to California needs a law like this.”
In a letter to lawmakers, the Alliance for Hope outlined the reasons why SB 989 is needed. It includes the signatures of victims’ family members, and Mary Beth Steed is one of them. Next to her name is a link to the CBS12 News I-Team investigation.
“We are determined to raise awareness so that we don’t have to clean up the mess later,” said Gwinn. “We want law enforcement to get it right the first time. If you don’t get it right the first time, it’s so hard to fix it.”
Original Source: Danielle DaRos, 12News. Click here to view original post!