Podcast:
Story:
Justice for Keith Warren, episode
1.
-Melodramatic music 0:05
(seconds)
My
name is Gurmandeep Randhawa; through out this episode I will be unwrapping the
flaws in the investigation of Keith Warrens suicide or murder. On July 31,
1986, a mother’s quiet word was shattered. Her only son, 19-year-old Keith
Warren was dead. Keith had lived with his sister and mother since his parents’
divorce when he was 10. By all accounts, Keith seemed destined for promising
future. Instead, his life had come to an untimely end.
Keith
Warren’s brutal mystery murder or suicide still remains a mystery till this
date. Many like Keith’s mother and sister believe that this was not a suicide
but a merciless murder. Through out this podcast I will be sharing some of the
noticeable mistakes made by the police in solving this so called suicide case.
Melodramatic music 0:08 (seconds)
Paramedics
found Keith in a wooded area behind his family’s townhouse. He was found
hanging by the neck from a small tree that was bent double with his weight. The
elaborate arrangement of the hanging rope would later be the source of bitter
debate. The cord was anchored around the base of a large tree. It extended some
25 feet to a small sapling. It encircled the saplings trunk and then arched up
through a fork. How ever authorities saw nothing suspicious about the scene.
After a brief visual investigation, the county’s deputy medical examiner
determined that Keith Warren had committed suicide. No autopsy was ordered and
the body was dispatched to a funeral home for embalming. It was dark when the
officers informed Mary Couey about her sons death.
-Recording of mother’s exact
wording on Unsolved Mysteries Keith Warren
-Recording
-“I didn’t realize at the time that Keith’s body was not in
a morgue. There’d been no investigation and his body had been discovered
maybe five or six hours earlier… I didn’t know at the time that the officer had
chosen a funeral home.”
Sad Music 0:04 (seconds)
Initially
Keith’s mother accepted the findings of suicide, but over time she found
discrepancies too numerous to ignore. Her doubts began after she heard from a
friend of Keith’s named Rodney Kendell. Rodney reported that a parade of
suspicious characters had been looking for Keith shortly before his death.
- Recording of Friend
witness Rodney Kendell on unsolved mysteries Keith Warren
-
-“It was mainly black males that were in the car. And
Keith did not associate much with black males. Most of his friends were
white males, so I thought that was pretty strange. After I told them I
hadn’t seen Keith, they left.”
Several
days later Rodney had another odd encounter, this time a high school
acquaintance of Keith’s named Mark Finley.
- Recording of Rodney
-
“He seemed
pretty urgent. I thought it was strange because he acted like he needed
to find Keith very quickly. And I told him I didn’t know where Keith was
and he left.”
-
Weeks after Keith’s death, Mary asked
Rodney to show her the tree where her son’s body was found. But when they
arrived to the site, they noticed that only the stump remained. Mary
panicked and called the police.
-
Recording of police
-
“And they were very rude and told me that ‘Well,
what do you want us to do? Yeah, we cut it down. What do you want us
to do about it?’”
The police said they needed to cut down the
tree for evidence, but this seemed strange since they had already closed the
case. Keith’s mother no longer trusted the police or their
explanations. She launched a letter-writing campaign, targeting state and
federal officials. But for six long years, Mary Couey hit a stone wall
every way she turned.
Then came April 9, 1992, her son’s
birthday. Keith would’ve been 25. That afternoon, Mary found a
plain manila envelope at her doorstep. The stunning contents swept her
back to the day of her son’s death. There were five pictures inside the
envelope. Each showed a different view of Keith hanging by his
neck. Mary forced herself to look, and in the process, found a glaring
discrepancy:
-
Recording of Mary
-
“His clothing didn’t fit him. He was wearing
somebody else’s clothing. But the real eye-catcher was that he was wearing
white sneakers.”
For Mary Couey, it was a nightmarish
inconsistency. It was her son in the photographs but whose clothes was he
wearing? Whose white tennis shoes, and why was he wearing them? The
only items of clothing the police returned to the family were Keith’s jacket
and brown boots. Neither was shown in the photographs, although
authorities said that they had been found near Keith’s body. Mary
now feared police were working against her and hired private investigator, Joe
Alercia:
-
Recording
-
The police department conceded that they
were copies of original police photos, but they had no idea where they came from,
none whatsoever. They were questioned numerous times.
When Joe Alercia examined the pictures, he noticed
leaves on the back of Keith’s shirt. To Alercia, this suggested Keith had
been lying on the ground and was hoisted into a hanging position by someone
else. Alercia said that his theory was bolstered by the complex path of
the rope found at the scene:
- Recording
-
“The perpetrators noticed that
the tree was small and wouldn’t hold the body. There fore they needed some
security by tying it around the big tree.”
Finally Keith’s family had his body exhumed
for an autopsy. The results were shocking. Tests on Keith’s body
showed deadly levels of several powerful chemicals that are usually found in
glue and solvents. According to forensic pathologist Dr. Isidore
Mihalakis, the levels found in Keith’s body were more than enough to kill him:
-Recording
- “These substances can get
in there by inhalation, or they can actually even be taken in by mouth… I
believe that Keith Warren’s death being listed as suicide is medically not
supportable.”
Maryland’s chief medical examiner reviewed
the report and claimed the toxic chemicals were part of the embalming
process. But Dr. Mihalakis disagreed:
-Recording
- “The
substances found in Keith Warren’s body could not have been introduced by the
embalming fluid because, the embalmer, in his report never mentioned using any
of those substances… Secondly the distribution of the key substance
trichloroethane is more consistent with inhalation… And third, two
additional substances were found which are totally unrelated to any embalming
solution.”
But if the chemicals were not in the embalming fluid,
where did they come from? Joe Alercia had his own theory:
-Recording
- “He could’ve been at a party with some drugs involved and he
accidentally killed himself and they were afraid. And then they decided
to take and hang him, make it look like a suicide… Or he could’ve been attacked
from the back. And that particular chemical is so potent, that one
chemist said that he was dead before he hit the ground.”
-Recording
-If Keith Warren didn’t hang himself, then who
did hang him? In a final disturbing twist, the one person who might’ve
answered that question also turned up dead under suspicious circumstances.
Mark Finley was one of those who came looking for Keith a few days before
he died. Six years later, when Mary received the photographs, a note
attached to one said “don’t worry, Mark Finley will be next.” Two months
after Mark learned he had been singled out, he contacted Mary Couey:
Mark called my
residence, left a message on my answering machine to the effect of something
that said ‘Miss Warren, this is Mark Finley. I got your message and I
will be by to see you.’ I do remember the specific words were ‘I need to
unload.’”
-Recording
-One month later, Mark Finley was dead. According to the police,
Finley died accidentally when he struck a curb and was thrown from his
bike. But why was Mark Finley targeted in a threatening note? Did
he truly have information about Keith Warren’s death? As with all the
other nagging questions, the authorities have a standard answer—this case is
closed.
Key
Word
Blue = Narrator
Yellow = Rodney
Pink
= Mother
Red = Doctor
Grey = Detective
