Medical examiners resolute in Evelyn Boswell’s cause of death, forensic evidence shared
Prosecutors aimed to isolate Megan Boswell as the sole person to blame in her daughter Evelyn Boswell’s death during Tuesday’s court proceedings. Jurors left a tense courtroom after a medical examiner witness was warned to answer in a certain way or be held in contempt of court.
In her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Amber Massengill told the jury that Boswell was the only person responsible for Evelyn’s death, and the district attorney’s office has continued its attempts to prove that. A former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) agent
testified on Monday that several other people tied to the case were eliminated as suspects, but the investigation continued to point solely at Boswell.
Prosecutors sought to build on that claim Tuesday. First, the jury heard an audio recording of a police interview conducted by a TBI agent with Boswell on Feb. 23. In it, she claimed her mother had taken Evelyn and given her to someone else who could take better care of her, which differed from previous claims she made to police.
Next, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Paul Durant testified about his role and findings in the case. Durant told the court that through digital extraction, he was able to pull conversations from Boswell’s phones and social media accounts.
In some of those conversations, Boswell told other people that she was in a custody battle with Ethan Perry, who was previously thought to be Evelyn’s father. In another, she told someone to stay out of her family’s business and sent what she claimed to be a recent photo of her and Evelyn; however, Durant told the jury he was able to confirm the photo was months old.
Durant also read aloud messages between Boswell and her boyfriend at the time, Hunter Wood. In a Dec. 28, 2020 conversation, Boswell told Wood a story that she had repeated to others: Evelyn was with Perry.
“‘Ethan and I talked, and he’s going to stay home,'” Durant read from Boswell’s messages to Wood. “And then it’s followed by ‘He thinks that what’s would be best also because I’m obviously not a very stable parent right now and Evelyn doesn’t want to come home with me.'”
The next two witnesses, Marla Gray and David Hoover, are both special agents with the TBI who work as forensic scientists in TBI crime labs. Both qualified as experts in their fields and shared the findings of their analyses in the case.
Gray told the jury that on a number of pieces of evidence, DNA results were inconclusive. A piece of gum and a tissue inside the trash can Evelyn was found in both returned positive matches for Boswell, she said. Evelyn’s DNA was also found on several items like pillows and some clothing.
According to Gray, unidentified male DNA was found on and in some items. However, she informed both Boswell’s attorney, Gene Scott, and the deputy district attorney, William Harper, that there was not enough DNA present to provide a positive match even if they had had a matching profile for the male.
Hoover is an expert in the field of latent print identification. He tested the trash can and trash bag Evelyn was found in, as well as the aluminum foil that had been wrapped around her head.
In total, Hoover was able to positively match four fingerprints from Boswell: a partial one on the rim of the trash can, two on the trash bag and one on the aluminum foil.
“I was able to identify the fingerprint from underneath the rim of the trash can to Megan Boswell’s number two or right index finger,” Hoover said.
While he noted the aluminum foil was difficult to obtain prints from, Hoover was certain the one he found was Boswell’s.
“My findings on that one was that it did identify to Megan Boswell’s left middle finger,” Hoover said of the print he found on the aluminum foil.
The final two witnesses called to the stand were both medical examiners. Dr. Matrina Schmidt conducted Evelyn’s autopsy at the William L. Jenkins Forensic Center and also responded to the scene the night Evelyn was found. She walked the court through her process and shared her findings, including her determination for the cause of death.
“The cause of death, homicidal violence,” Dr. Schmidt said. “I based it on the autopsy findings, the investigative summary, investigators that went to the scene and law enforcement investigation.”
Dr. Schmidt told the jury that she believed Evelyn died as a result of positional asphyxiation by homicide.
Scott asked Dr. Schmidt if a number of other medical reasons could have led to Evelyn’s death before she was placed in the trash can. After a back and forth in which she maintained that she did not believe the death to be accidental or the result of another medical condition, Scott asked her about medical evidence disproving those possibilities.
“So you can’t rule that out in this case, can you?” Scott asked Dr. Schmidt.
“I ruled it out,” she answered.
Following Dr. Schmidt’s testimony, Dr. Darinka Mileusnic-Polschan was called to testify. She serves as the medical examiner for multiple East Tennessee counties and was qualified as an expert in forensic pathology like Dr. Schmidt.
Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan was asked by the district attorney’s office to review the autopsy report and the rest of the case to make her own objective opinion on Evelyn’s cause of death. She told the jury that she agreed almost entirely with Dr. Schmidt’s determination with the only difference being that she found more manners in which Evelyn experienced asphyxiation.
“So, my opinion was that Evelyn died of an asphyxia death and that the manner of death was homicide,” Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan said.
Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan reviewed photos of Evelyn’s body and pointed out what she said were indications of death by asphyxiation. She also refuted Scott’s proposals that Evelyn could have died in a co-sleeping incident, by a number of other medical conditions or by sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan took it a step further to say that SIDS is an “outdated” and “antiquated” term no longer used by respectable medical examiners. She said it was a misnomer as there was no such syndrome and it was a term used when autopsy results were inconclusive.
Tensions grew at the end of Scott’s cross-examination of Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan when he asked her if she could conclusively say whether or not Evelyn was dead before or after she was put in the trash can. Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan continued to give lengthy answers while Scott sought a yes or no answer.
He asked her if she was refusing to answer his questions and told Judge Jim Goodwin that she was being an evasive witness. After an earlier warning, Goodwin told Dr. Mileusnic-Polschan that she had to give a yes or no answer with an explanation afterward or else she would be held in contempt of court.
“Ma’am, yes or no, can you say conclusively this child was alive or dead when it was placed in the blanket and the tin foil?” Scott asked.
“The blanket, the tin foil, the trash can? Which one? OK, the answer is no,” Dr. Mileusnic-Polchan said. “She could have been murdered a different way.”
www.crimewatchers.net
www.wbir.com
newschannel9.com
