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Friday, Mar 03, 2006

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Posted on Fri, Mar. 03, 2006

Teen who died after boot camp beating to be exhumed for autopsy

DAVID ROYSE

Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A second medical examiner and an independent pathologist will conduct a new autopsy on the body of a teenager who authorities said died of natural causes after a violent altercation with guards at a Panama City juvenile boot camp, the family announced Friday.

Martin Lee Anderson's body will be exhumed March 12, taken to Tampa and autopsied by Dr. Vernard Adams, the medical examiner in Hillsborough County, and Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist who reviewed medical evidence in the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evars. The two will perform the autopsy together but make separate reports.

"It's a crying shame - we've got to go pull our son up again just to get the truth," said Robert Anderson, the boy's father.

The family is disputing the conclusion of Bay County's medical examiner, Dr. Charles Siebert, that the boy died from hemorrhaging caused by the usually benign condition of sickle cell trait, and not from the 30-minute altercation. He was kneed, struck and dragged by guards on his first day at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp for juvenile offenders. Anderson eventually was taken to a Pensacola hospital where he died the next day, Jan. 6.

The ordeal was captured by a camp security camera and later broadcast nationally.

Siebert said Friday the new autopsy was "a good idea."

"Hopefully we can come to a consensus," Siebert said. "I'm confident in my findings. ... I think a lot of people are not knowing all the facts."

Gov. Jeb Bush has appointed Hillsborough State Attorney Mark A. Ober to review the evidence in his death. Ober has declined comment on the case, calling it an ongoing investigation. No guard has been arrested or fired.

The family's lawyer, Benjamin Crump, said the family retained Baden to be part of the autopsy.

Crump said the Anderson family had been working with Ober and was "encouraged by his position of impartiality."

Anderson died hours after he collapsed while doing push-ups, sit-ups, running laps and other exercises that were part of his admission to the camp. He entered the camp for a probation violation for trespassing at a school after he and his cousins were originally charged with stealing their grandmother's car from a church parking lot.

The security video shows as many as nine guards kneeing, hitting and dragging Anderson around the exercise yard. The sheriff's office has said the guards were trying to get Anderson to participate after he became uncooperative. No one has been charged or fired. Because of the controversy, Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said he plans to close the camp in May. It is one of six in the state, run by counties under state supervision.

"You don't want to let his death be in vain and you don't want to let them get away with this," Crump said. He said that after the second autopsy, "Martin will be returned to Panama City to his final resting place."

Anderson's mother, Gina Jones, said the decision to have her son's body exhumed was difficult. But she said she believes it is the only way to understand for sure what happened.

Jones said that if the new autopsy comes back inconclusive or backs up what Siebert found, she still will believe that her son was murdered.

"After looking at that video, I still would," Jones said.

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