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Hello, medical examiner here. You are going to see a lot of people saying this today. This is 100% a misinterpretation of this autopsy report. What the Medical Examiners office has released is a preliminary report, it is not the final version. 1/? https://twitter.com/WashTimes/status/1266471553233027075
Asphyxia as a cause of death often DOES NOT demonstrate physical findings. There are some, but they are nonspecific and not present in all cases. As such to make the diagnosis, the ME needs to exclude other potential causes of death which will necessitate a toxicology report 2/?
The presence of natural disease such as coronary artery atherosclerosis does not exclude traumatic or positional asphyxia as a cause of death. Those findings may be ultimately deemed contributory, however it does not make the manner not a homicide.
It would have been ideal if, for example, there had been cutaneous and ocular petechiae or hemorrhage in the soft tissue of the back. But often in cases like this those findings are not present and it makes things very difficult and unfortunately easy for media to misconstrue.
Just to clarify for anyone who gets this far, none of this is to say a medical examiner might come to a different conclusion, one which I may disagree with, or might have found a better way to convey this. Just trying to help clear this up.
