Below is a comment my Mom left in April, 2017. Every word of it remains relevant today. It's a shame that she did not live to see justice for Charlie. Rita Heller passed away on November 13, 2019. We wish it were not so.
Take it away, Mum.
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As Charlie's grandmother I am still very concerned and dismayed at the finding of Charlie's death as SUICIDE. The reasons given were threefold:
Suicide Circumstances
Recent suicide of friend/family
Crisis in past 1 weeks
Other relationship problem
These three things are simply figments of someone’s imagination and are most certainly not true.
Recent suicide of friend/family - there has been no suicide of any family member, no suicide of any known friend or acquaintance of either Charlie or anyone else that we know. This is simply not true.
Crisis in the past 1 weeks – there was no crisis in Charlie’s life, no crisis in either Charlie’s maternal or paternal family, or for any of his friends or acquaintances. This is simply not true.
Other relationship problem – what on earth does this statement even mean? If there was any relationship problem in this 12 year old's life he most certainly would have shared that with his mother, father, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends or grandparents. This is simply not true.
http://legalbeagle.com/8787355-mean-cause-death-undetermined.html
Problems in Possible Suicide Cases
In the same article, Dr. Panella also explains that for a ruling of suicide, the medical examiner must conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the person intentionally meant to kill himself. This can prove tricky for a medical examiner, because once again he does not know the intent if there are not other reports available to help him make that determination. If a person dies after drinking a large amount of alcohol and ingesting a large amount of sleeping pills, it might appear as suicide, but there is reasonable doubt. The person might not have realized how many pills he was taking or meant to take something else, not sleeping pills. According to Dr. M.J. Breiding of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, many suicides end up as undetermined classification due to the lack of knowledge surrounding intent.
Meaning of Undetermined
Most states recognize five causes of death: undetermined, natural, homicide, suicide and accidental. The main problem for medical examiners in classifying death is that homicide, suicide and accidental all involve intent. A medical examiner may classify the cause of death as undetermined if the intent is not understood at the conclusion of an autopsy, due to legal consequences attached to such cases. For legal purposes an undetermined cause of death simply means the medical examiner cannot say for sure what caused the death of the person. For example, if a person with severe heart problems dies of a heart attack and is found to have a large dose of cocaine in his system during autopsy, it may not be clear if the heart attack was natural or cocaine caused it. If the medical examiner cannot conclude, he might list the death as undetermined.
Our family wants the Death Certificate changed to Accidental - not UNDETERMINED as that means they don't know how it happened (ligature marks and witness statements say that he was found hanging so that ought to be obvious) and of course not say SUICIDE because there was no indication of intent whatsoever either by word or written.
Our family would like to be able to grieve Charlie and not constantly have to struggle with this death certificate finding - it is almost two years now and we pray daily that the coroner will change the finding as was offered in a recent letter from Thom Canny.
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RVH 12.o5.19
