Autopsy backlog opens up old cases
Death reports sent back to 21 county prosecutors for criminal investigations
By Tom Searls
Charleston Gazette
September 17, 2006
In June, Pleasants County prosecutor Tim Sweeney wondered why he was getting mail from the West Virginia Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We’re a small county, so if I’m waiting for something from the medical examiner, I usually know it,” he said Friday.
What he found inside the envelope was the M.E.’s completed autopsy report on the April 1981 death of 4-month-old Ricky Poore. His autopsy report, like hundreds of others, apparently lay around and collected dust in the Morgantown office of the medical examiner, never completed.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources says it has referred 59 old cases back to county prosecutors for potential criminal investigation. Prosecutors in 21 counties have had to weigh whether to pursue criminal charges in the cases.
The now-amended death certificate in the Poore case says he died from a “traumatic head injury.”
Ricky Poore was shaken to death, the report said. His mother and siblings say they have waited 25 years for justice.
“I was 5 years old, and I know what I saw,” said Chuck Hinton, the now 31-year-old brother of Ricky. “I’ve been dreaming this every night for 25 years.”
The child’s father, Richard Alan Poore, 46, has since been charged with first-degree murder. In a criminal complaint, State Police allege the elder Poore “did repeatedly and violently shake his infant son in an attempt to stop the baby’s crying to the point of death of the child.”
Richard Poore is currently released on bond and residing in North Carolina. Sweeney said his case will be presented to a grand jury Sept. 25.
Hinton remembers that morning in the mobile home with a built-on addition on Morgan Avenue in St. Marys.
“I was the only one that watched what happened,” he said. “I was the one that went to the next door neighbor and asked her to call an ambulance. I said, ‘Call an ambulance. He just killed my brother.’”
Hinton doesn’t want to give details of what he saw that spring morning because he fears damaging the case. His brother was kept alive for several days in the hospital, but the day the machines were turned off, his mother took the children and hid from her husband again. She had done it before, only to be found, beaten and threatened.
“At the time Ricky was born, we weren’t even together,” said Jeri Williams, Hinton’s mother.
But Poore, a native of Athens County, Ohio, found her and the other four children in St. Marys, she said. For 25 years, she said, she has wanted justice, but couldn’t get any information from State Police, the prosecutor or from Dr. Jack Frost, the man who headed the now-closed Morgantown office of the medical examiner.
“My mother called Morgantown every month for a year,” Hinton recalled. “They kept telling her they were waiting on blood tests.”
With no money to hire an investigator or attorney, the family moved to Ohio, then to Doddridge County and then back to Ohio. Williams, now 53, worked hard to keep her other children away from Poore.
But they all wanted answers. “We were nobodies with no money. We just weren’t important enough for them to worry about,” Hinton said.
Then came word from Sweeney that investigators were moving on the case. Hinton said the memories for his entire family came flowing back.
He recalls he and his brother Alan being hit by Poore. His sister, one of Poore’s own children, being kicked by her father.
“I remember one day my mother taking a whipping with a belt because she sent us to a church,” Hinton said.
In another incident, Hinton recalls, Poore knocked his mom’s teeth through her lip with a screwdriver. “That’s because my mother wouldn’t give him the [family’s] food stamps.”
Hinton said he can never forget that morning in April 1981. “That morning, it wasn’t only that he lost his mind, he killed my brother,” he said.
His mother had just left for work at the state’s Colin-Anderson Center. His two oldest siblings had gone to school. “Laura [Poore’s daughter] was sleeping. We were the only two there and we woke up for breakfast,” he recalled.
Laura went to sleep a short time later and Ricky began to cry. It was then that Poore came out of the bedroom with the baby in his arms.
“I’ve never forgotten and I never will,” said Hinton.
“I just want him to admit to killing my brother. Even if he only gets five years...”
The case was one of the hundreds of incomplete autopsies discovered after the Morgantown medical examiner’s office closed in 2003, when Frost retired. Last fall, the state DHHR contracted with private pathologists to complete them.
Starting in the summer, the office began returning 59 questionable cases to prosecuting attorneys in 21 counties in the northern section of West Virginia.
Frost expressed dismay that many cases were left pending and by the number referred back to prosecutors. Asked about the Poore case, Frost could not recall it and said he believed he might have requested additional information and set it aside while waiting.
But prosecutor Sweeney said his predecessor followed up, sending at least one letter to Frost requesting the autopsy results. “I’ve got a copy of the letter where he requested the results,” the prosecutor said.
There was no case file in the office when Sweeney took over, he said. “The only reason I have the letter was a copy was in the medical examiner’s report,” he said.
“Without my having the case folder and seeing my notes and what is in it, I can’t say why we didn’t respond to it,” Frost said.
Hinton and his family feel public officials failed in their jobs.
“As far as [Poore], it wasn’t him who did this to us,” he said. “It was the State Police, the prosecuting attorney, the coroner.”
Frost noted he “worked solo” out of the Morgantown office and offered to complete the backlog of work for free after his retirement. He remains amazed at the criticism and said state officials have yet to contact him.
“I’m hurt, I’m flabbergasted and I’m totally shocked by this,” Frost said. “I don’t know what to say.”
Frost still questions why he wasn’t allowed to complete the work.
Hinton is bitter toward the medical examiner, who won national recognition during his career.
“I feel sorry for all the other 58 families,” Hinton said. “Have they gone through the same things we have?”
While 59 cases were sent back to prosecutors, no one seems certain how many are actual crimes that need to be investigated. Sgt. Danny Swiger, a member of the State Police cold case team, said so far he and officers in his division have only been assigned three cases. Two are in Preston County and one in Wetzel.
“My understanding is the two cases we have are from ’86 and ’91,” said Melvin Snyder III, Preston County prosecutor.
The 1986 case probably stems from Taylor County, although the body of a newborn was found in a Preston County landfill. Officials knew in 1986 it was a homicide.
“We just couldn’t get information about it,” Snyder said.
The 1991 case deals with the death of a 2-year-old. “I don’t believe in that one that we had believed it to be a homicide,” he said.
He’ll wait to see what Swiger comes up with, but realizes old cases are sometimes hard to solve. “Generally, the longer you wait the harder it is to prosecute, but it’s not impossible,” he said.
Tim Haught, Wetzel County’s prosecutor, noted alleged criminals must be prosecuted under the laws that were in effect at the time the crimes occurred. Child abuse laws have been tightened in recent years.
He has turned over the 1984 case sent to him to Swiger.
“They’ll evaluate the case and we’ll do an investigation on this end and decide if there’s a basis for prosecution,” he said.
“Depending on the age of the case, usually in a homicide case your first 48 hours are the most important,” investigator Swiger said.
Old cases present problems locating reports, evidence and most importantly witnesses. “There are certain cases you’ll never solve,” he conceded.
Ohio County prosecutor Scott Smith, who took office in 2001, received a 2000 case from the M.E.’s office. He is evaluating it to decide the next step.
“I was not aware that this case had been sent to the medical examiner’s office,” he said, declining to give additional details.
Some of the 21 prosecutors say they have yet to receive information from the state. The DHHR reported that Jefferson County has three old cases.
“I’m aware of one case that they’re apparently working on, but three?” said prosecutor Mike Thompson.
The DHHR reports Harrison County has had five cases referred. “I haven’t received any that I know of,” said prosecutor Joseph F. Shaffer.
Randolph County prosecutor Frank Bush is supposed to also get five. He recalls seeing only one that was from the late 1980s or early 1990s.
“There wasn’t enough information there to go forward and where are these people now? Bush said.
Prosecutors in counties such as Pocahontas, Grant, Webster and Morgan said the cases they got back — a total of five altogether — had already been resolved.
“I don’t know how many we’ll be assigned out,” Swiger said. “I’m not quite sure what the definition of incomplete is.”
Ricky Poore Jr.’s family hopes its nightmare is coming to an end. Hinton, his two sisters and mother still reside in the Ohio Valley. The brother lives in Virginia.
“I’m within 12 miles of St. Marys,” Hinton said. “It’s nice because we can go to St. Marys and take care of our brother’s grave.”
He believes the incident has made him a better parent for his three children.
“There’s two ways you can turn out,” he said, “you can take the bad side of the road and do what happened to us or learn from it.”
To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5192.