Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / May 28, 1994, edition 1 / Page 1
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08/20/'^'^ LBON '-Lti ^-;599'39Bt CB 393D ,, NC exhumation of the body of KEITH W WARRFN Horn Rn..aon,»„» i .u ^ , m.„l.s. M„ 2!, ., H„n. gV„.. Mother Won’t Give Up ver Spring, Md. At right, tombstone of grave where reinterment is scheduled for Saturday. (Photos by Ray Trent) Was Son’s Death Suicide or Homicide? Hie body of Keith Waddell Warren was exhumed early Wednesday tnmg, May 25, from its burial place in Harris Grove Cemetery ^gemont, m northern Durham County. It had been interned there since iiigust 3, 986. It was then prepared by Fisher Funeral Parlor for flight Wennsylyania where an autopsy will be performed by IsadL lihalakis to try to determine if death was by suicide or homicide hanging from a smail tree in tooded area less than 200 yards from what was then the family’s ^idence m the Aspen Hill area of Mountgomery County, Md. Death as sudden and violent, according to reports of the time. He was 19 years old. pmily reports say that after five minutes at the scene, police ruled Hth s death a suicide. M had been reared m Durham during his elementary school years 1 f™"' Ken^ J, in Silver Spring, Md. and was headed to college at m Carolina Central University in Durham. pith’s father Cleo Warren, who was a 21-year police officer in Dur- Mffered a $5,000 reward for information about his son’s death I Ma^land state medical examiner ruled the death a suicide at the i H 2:10 in the afternoon. I dnot order an autopsy. Police sent the body to a white funeral home lere it was immediately processed". IftevenA'™ his mother was notified of his .even though a neighbor had furnished police with the mother’s tel- 5ne number at work about 2:30 p.m. Officer L. Leverette’s report states he went to Walter Reed Army f P-'" ’ Mrs. Couey and she asked if they found her son,...dead or alive,...did he hang himselft Leverette asked why her son would take his own life. He reported that Mrs. Couey related a story of family problems. Mrs. Couey’s version of what happened then is that Police Officer Leverette asked to talk with her alone, showed her Keith’s driver’s li cense and, when he told her Keith was dead, she went into hysterics Leverette summoned a physician and a psychiatrist who sedated her and Leverette continued to question her for 45 minutes... Mrs. Couey was driven home by ber supervisor and they called her brother in North Carolina who drove immediately to Maryland At 12-30 August 1, he, Robert Harris, Mrs. Couey’s brother, tried to get in- H^r”" Collins Funeral The funeral home was contacted at 2 a.m. and the night guard stated it wa^closed, come at 9 a.m. At that time, Robert and his wife arrived back at Colhns and were not allowed to see the body; they were told the mother would have to appear. The three returned to the funeral home at 11 a.m. Again they were told they could not see the body; that it was being processed; it was grossly decomposed. The mother was requested to give permission to destroy Keith’s clothes, which she gave; then she was presented a contract to sign and was requested to pay $1 000 as a police ^ Harris asked for the rope and was told it was held by the On the way back home, they stopped at the police station and asked for the rope and were shown it, but the noose was missing and the police did not know where it was. The uncle was given Keith’s cap, duffel bag jacket, and was handed a pair of boots separately. At noon August 1, Robert Harris returned for the fourth time to Collins Funeral Home with the requested clothes Keith was to be buried in Again he was refused access to the body, with the explanation that it was still being processed. Robert Harris threatened trouble if he was not al lowed to see his nephew’s body. He was escorted to see briefly, not physically examine, the body. He saw no decomposition Late in the afternoon of August 1, Keith’s sister, Sheiri, Mrs. Couey’s ^ster and aunt arrived from New Jersey and asked about an autopsy Detective Beasley told Mrs, Turner, Mrs. Couey’s sister, that the case had been closed the day of discovery, July 31, 1986 and no autopsy was necessaiy. When told that the family requested an autopsy, Beasley reportedly said that the morgue in Baltimore was closed for the weekend. Keith carried identification which directed that, in the case of emer gency, he be sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Mrs. Mary E. Hams Couey, Keith’s mother, worked in the pathology department of Walter Reed Medical Center. She questioned the police in vestigation almost immediately. "They never treated my son’s death as a crime scene," she said. "They treated it as a sideshow." Mrs. Couey said one of the investigating officers suggested to her that ■ race may have played a role in her son’s death, because the family liv^: : ’ (Continued On Page 3) istitute Releases State of Study of Minorities In State Ms. Harris, president of the N.C. Institute of Minority ^^^veiopment; d»lr; «hI Ms. Nicole Curbe«n, principle investigator The North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development recently released "the alarming findings" of an award-winning, na tionally recognized study entitled, "A Profile of North Carolina’s Af rican American and Native Amer ican Populations." "...the disparities that exist be tween North Carolina’s white pop ulation and the minority population are both discouraging and dis heartening. As the state with the seventh largest African American population, North Carolina should be doing better than it is," said a noted economist at UNC-Chapel Hill. The study, winner of an Ex cellence Award from the American Economic Development Council, reveals the existing inequities and disparities between the white, Afri can American wnd Native Amer ican populations in the state. It also contains an analysis of these dis parities, highlighting information in numbers and percentages by county and in the state. The report has been released to selected persons in state govern ment, related organizations and other interested persons across the state in the public and private sec- Persons desirous of receiving a jc Development, PO Box 1307, copy of the study may write to: Durham, NC 27702 or call: N.L. Institute ot Minority Econom- 919/682-1894 Federal Judge Complains About Slow Pace of State Desegregation Case - U.S. District Judge Neal Biggers Jr. said last riday that plaintiffs in Mississippi’s college desegregation trial are tak ing too long to present their case. So far, it is not going as counsel advised me," Biggers said at the close 0 the trial s second week. "It’s going a lot slower, and its lasting a lot onger. Plaintiffs and defendants were ordered to submit a list of their witnesses and estimation on how long they will testify. Both sides were to give their estimates of how much longer the case will last. Black plaintiffs claim historically black universities have suffered years of neglect while the state has continued to pump money into predomi nantly white colleges. Biggers will decide how the state will remove rem nants of segregation from the college system. When attorneys said they probably could not complete the case in two more weeks, Biggers said "I think you might have to. That’s too long to ,)resent a case on remand." Biggers said he hadn’t put a time limit on wit nesses yet, but would probably have to if the case continued to move so slowly. Testimony continued last Friday with a University of Mississippi professor saying Ole Miss had a "piecemeal, troubleshooting, crisis- oriented policy" for dealing with race relations. Bruce Williams, associate professor of sociology, said at one time problems got so bad that he was afi^d there would be violence on the campus. (Continued On Page 4)
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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May 28, 1994, edition 1
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