The story of Lynn DeJac, her conviction and subsequent exoneration by DNA evidence showing that her boyfriend, the prosecution’s new best friend at trial, was the putative (and immunized) culprit, is not yet over.

Now, it appears that the death of 13 year old Crystallynn was caused by a cocaine overdose, as concluded by Dr. Michael Baden in this Buffalo News story.  Thanks to Kathleen Casey for the heads-up.  It seems that Dr. Sung-ook Baik, the associate chief Erie County medical examiner at the time of Crystallynn’s death in 1993, made a boo-boo.  He neglected to mention toxic levels of cocaine in Crystallyn at the time he gave the cause of death, in his opinion strangulation.  Except for the lethal amount of cocaine.  Oops. 

No, the story still isn’t over.  Lynn DeJac was happy about the blame being placed on her former boyfriend, Dennis P. Donahue (a/k/a the lying rat bastard).  But she was not at all happy about the news that her daughter died from a lethal cocaine overdose.  Not that she was likely to win mother of the year in any event, but this certainly wasn’t going to help.

This new-found forensic detail raises changes the calculus.  DeJac’s lawyer, inexplicably choosing to speak out on the issue (perhaps to make the most of his 15 minutes since there aren’t that many chances up in Buffalo), has this to say:

LoTiempo said he had mixed feelings about the cocaine overdose and the imminent dropping of the charges against his client.  “Professionally, I did my job,” he said of the charges being dropped against DeJac.

On the personal side, though, he feels for DeJac and the effect that the latest findings will have on the reputation of a girl who never saw her 14th birthday. “Personally, Lynn DeJac aside, I almost feel like I knew Crystallynn,” LoTiempo said. “If this isn’t a cocaine overdose, I feel bad for Crystallynn.”

LoTiempo refused to say how he believes Crystallynn died, although he did provide a hint in his final comment. “To me, there’s just as much proof that she was strangled to death,” he said. “But I’ll take it.”

Now it’s understandable that Lynn DeJac would prefer that her daughter’s death be blamed on her boyfriend than her abject failure as a mother.  But LoTiempo isn’t her publicist, and more important, appears to be covering up the issue this raises for him.  While he says he did his job since the charges against DeJac were dropped, there are 13 years of imprisonment that run smack through the middle of that claim.

If the cause of death was a lethal overdose of cocaine, then why didn’t LoTiempo beat the murder trial in the first place? 

Is that list of medical signs — including the frothing and the broken blood vessels — consistent with a manual strangulation?

“Bingo,” LoTiempo replied quickly, without elaborating.

 I bet he replied quickly.  But this is no game of bingo (quite the popular sport in Buffalo, I hear).

LoTiempo explained why he was so shocked at the claim that Crystallynn died from a cocaine overdose, as he recalled his 1994 conversation with Baik just before the medical examiner testified at the DeJac trial.

“The amount [of cocaine] that was being indicated in the bloodstream was such a small amount . . . that it was a non-issue at the time,” LoTiempo said.

Now that’s a curious conclusion, considering that Michael Baden, perhaps the best known pathologist around, found the amount to be lethal.  So how did Andrew LoTiempo arrive at his medical conclusion as to the cocaine being a “non-issue.”  According to LoTiempo, he took Baik’s word for it.  And now it appears that Baik was wrong.  That would be the second “oops”.  Why would DeJac’s attorney not investigate the cause of death if his client denies having murdered her daughter?  Great question.  Glad you asked.  But I have no answer.

And where did 13 year old Crystallyn DeJac get her hands on cocaine, and more particularly, enough cocaine to kill herself? 

Authorities probably will never know how, from whom and where Crystallynn got any cocaine. They believe Crystallynn was not a long-term cocaine abuser, as pathologists found no sign of any buildup of cocaine in her organs, and her friends were adamant that she was not a cocaine abuser.

This has been quite a case study for all involved, and nobody is walking away from this poor dead child with clean hands.  Nobody.