The mother says her son will be exhumed for a March 13 autopsy in Tampa into his death at a Bay County boot camp.
By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
Published March 4, 2006
TALLAHASSEE - Gina Jones is conflicted about exhuming her son's remains.
On one hand, she is tortured by the thought of disturbing the black and gray casket buried at Redwood Cemetery in Panama City, one day before Martin Lee Anderson's 15th birthday.
On the other, she is convinced that guards at a Bay County boot camp for juvenile offenders beat her son to death.
On Friday, Jones announced that her son's body would be exhumed next week for an autopsy March 13 in Tampa.
"I'm doing everything I can for Martin. He doesn't have a voice," Jones said Friday at a news conference in Tallahassee.
The body will be exhumed late next week and driven to the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office.
There, it will be inspected by Dr. Vern Adams, the county medical examiner, and Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist who reviewed medical evidence in the slaying of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and was a member of O.J. Simpson's defense team.
Baden of New York was hired by the family amid controversy over the initial finding that the teenager died not from a beating but from internal bleeding caused by a blood disorder called sickle cell trait.
That conclusion, reached by Bay County Medical Examiner Charles Siebert, has been criticized by many in the medical community.
Some critics found it even more bizarre, given a video of the fight showing a half-dozen guards punching and kneeing Anderson during his first day at the boot camp on Jan. 5. He died the next day in a Pensacola hospital.
"I'm not worried about anyone finding anything different," Siebert said Friday. "I'm kind of glad someone is doing this so we can put all this to rest."
If the results support Siebert's finding or are inconclusive, Jones said, she would still attribute the death to the guards.
The body will be exhumed by Battle Memorial Funeral Home of Panama City and driven to Tampa. Benjamin Crump, the Anderson family attorney, said it is to be delivered by 9 a.m. March 13.
Neither Adams nor Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, whom Gov. Jeb Bush picked to oversee a criminal investigation of the death, would comment Friday on the process.
Dr. Stephen Nelson, chairman of the state's Medical Examiners Commission and Polk County's medical examiner, said it would be useful if everyone involved saw the video.
"You want everyone to be on the same page, and you want as much information as you can possible have," he said.
The body will probably be X-rayed to identify any broken bones, Nelson said.
Adams then will likely conduct an internal examination and an assessment of the organs, which Siebert dissected.
The soft tissue underneath the skin could hold valuable clues. Sometimes bruising resulting from trauma does not show up on the surface but can be visible below, Nelson said.
Siebert's autopsy took about two hours; Nelson expected Adams' to last at least four hours.
Throughout the day, Baden will be present. He does not have a medical license and cannot make incisions and conduct other procedures, according the state Health Department, but he can make observations. He may also take back evidence to New York for review.
Baden was recommended to the Anderson family by the NAACP and members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Crump declined to say how much Baden could be paid.
The author of books and dozens of scholarly articles, Baden chaired the forensic panel that reinvestigated the deaths of former President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Baden was a member of the forensic team asked by the Russian government to examine the newly found remains of Tsar Nicholas II, Alexandra and the Romanov family in Siberia in the 1990s, according to a biography on the Web site of the HBO show he hosts, Autopsy.
He has been an expert witness in numerous high-profile cases, including the deaths of actor John Belushi and former New York Yankee manager Billy Martin.
