The Tarrant medical examiner ruled she died of natural causes, but county authorities have appealed to the Texas attorney general to block the release of Chasity Bonner’s autopsy report through open records requests.
Bonner died in the Tarrant County jail on May 27. The medical examiner released the results of the autopsy earlier this month, concluding the 35-year-old mother of two died a natural death due to heart disease.
Bonner’s aunt, Pamela Taylor, and four media outlets, including the Star-Telegram, have requested her full autopsy report through open records requests.
The Tarrant County criminal district attorney notified the requesters on Thursday that, acting on behalf of the medical examiner, it had asked the Texas attorney general to rule that it withhold the report, citing the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office’s criminal investigation into Bonner’s death.
On Sept. 6, Taylor received an email from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office requesting that she withdraw her request , as Bonner’s death was still the subject of a criminal investigation. After asking the DA about the request on Sept. 9, the office sent the Star-Telegram a similar request.
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Robbie Hoy told the Star-Telegram in an email last week that the department’s Criminal Investigations Division investigates all in-custody deaths and that the case would be closed as “soon as the Medical Examiner’s Office sends us the official report.”
However, the ball appears to be in the Sheriff’s Office’s court.
John Briggs, the chief forensic death investigator and interim spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office, told the Star-Telegram in an email on Thursday that the Sheriff’s Office only has to request the autopsy report in order for the documents to be sent. He did not immediately respond to an inquiry into why the office requested the report be withheld.
Hoy did not immediately respond to an email asking when or if the sheriff’s office will request the report.
“This is a pattern,” said Daryl Washington, a Dallas-based lawyer who has taken Bonner’s mother LaMonica Bratton on as a client. Washington also represents the family of Anthony Johnson Jr. in their lawsuit against the county.
The medical examiner ruled Johnson’s death in the jail in April a homicide. Two jailers face murder charges, and they and three others have been named as defendants in the family’s civil suit.
“This is what the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office has been doing for quite some time in order to prevent aggrieved families from having access to these autopsy reports,” Washington said, adding that the tactic is meant to stall in hopes of running out the two-year statute of limitations on filing lawsuits in in-custody death cases.
“This is the game that they play in order to stretch this out past two years so that families don’t have enough time to conduct their own investigations,” he said.
Taylor, Bonner’s aunt, agreed with Washington, saying that she believes the sheriff’s office has “things to hide” and that the DA’s request that she withdraw her open records request was an attempt to intimidate her into stopping her search for information about the case.
The Criminal District Attorney’s Office said in an emailed statement that it suggested Taylor withdraw the request because of the Sheriff’s Office’s investigation and its “anticipation that the Attorney General will determine that the autopsy should not be produced during the pendency of this criminal investigation.”
Taylor does not believe her niece died of heart disease.
“I think they want some of the attention to die down first,” she said. “I just think that they are manipulating the whole situation.”
With the exhausting effects of grief evident in her voice, Bratton said that she is “at a loss for words” when it comes to dealing with Tarrant County authorities.
“Still no questions have been answered,” she said. “Not any .”
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