Published: August 14, 2008 11:51 pm      

Pathologist: Man’s death ruled homicide

Says ‘pattern of injuries does not support suicidal hanging’

RACELAND — An doctor hired to examine the remains of a Greenup County man whose 2001 death was ruled a suicide has concluded that the victim could not have taken his own life and most likely died as the result of a “violent homicide.”

California forensic pathologist Dr. David Posey performed an autopsy Wednesday on the body of Daniel “Buddy” Ellison, which was exhumed the previous day. In a telephone interview Thursday, Posey said that the “pattern of injuries” he found on the dead man “definitely does not support a suicidal hanging.”

“His death occurred at the hands of another,” he said. “It was a violent homicide.”

Investigators concluded that Ellison hanged himself from a clothing bar in a closet and he did so by standing on a plastic food container, then falling from it with a noose around his neck.

However, Posey said there was no way that Ellison could have suffered the injuries he did in such a manner.

Ellison had a broken neck, with the fracture located between the C1 and C2 vertebrae, he said. Ellison’s body would have had to have dropped a distance of at least seven or eight feet to generate enough force for that to have happened, he said.

Posey said he also found evidence of a spinal cord injury, something not normally seen in a hanging.

He said he did find a ligature mark on Ellison’s neck, but, he said it was a superficial wound, “more consistent with the type you’d expect to see when someone’s trying to hide a homicide.”

Posey was hired by Ellison’s mother and stepfather, Paul and Patricia Grant, to examine Ellison’s remains. The Grants filed a lawsuit in Greenup Circuit Court earlier this year seeking to have Ellison’s remains exhumed. The suit named Ellison’s widow, Kimberly, as the defendant.

Posey said that he planned to share his findings with the Kentucky State Police, with Greenup County Coroner Neil Wright and with the state Medical Examiner’s Office.

The Grants’ suit contends Ellison could not have ended his own life in the manner authorities said he did. The couple also maintains that the deputy coroner in charge of the investigation did not look for signs of death by strangulation or note them in his findings and that the deputy failed to give “proper weight” to a cut on Ellison’s right hand the Grants claim may have been inflicted while Ellison was defending himself.

Kimberly Ellison gave conflicting statements about the wound, the suit states. She allegedly told a deputy coroner Ellison suffered the injury while threatening her with a knife, then later told Raceland police and private investigators her husband cut himself while sharpening a knife.

However, the Grants contend it was unlikely Ellison was injured in the manner described by his wife because Ellison was right-handed and the cut was on his right hand.

A Greenup County grand jury has reviewed evidence in the case but did not indict anyone, according to the suit.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.