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PATHOLOGIST FIGHT DAMAGED STATE'S CASE

Written by The High Desert Advocate

Wednesday, 27 February 2008

    Jeremy Loncar was acquitted Wednesday of first degree murder of his estranged wife AnneMarie.
   The jury received the case yesterday afternoon and deliberated for some eight total hours Tuesday and Wednesday before reaching its verdict at around noon.
   Loncar the former assistant fire chief of the West Wendover was charged with the January 2006 killing of his wife. However the now acquitted fire fighter was not charged until almost 18 months after her body was found.
   In fact the case was closed for almost a year and AnneMarie’s death was officially ruled of natural causes by Washoe County Pathologist Kathy Raven.
   In her original autopsy Raven found that Mrs. Loncar died of asphyxiation brought about by asthma.
   While that finding was enough to satisfy the West Wendover Police, it was met with deep suspicion by the dead woman’s family.
   As far her parents, Greg and Monica Lemon of Layton, Utah knew AnnaMarie, while a smoker had never exhibited asthma and the condition went unnoticed to her family physician.
   Besides as one family member said, even if she had asthma what 26 year old woman just ups and dies?
   In addition to their suspicions about the autopsy the family was well acquainted with the marital problems Jeremy and AnneMarie were having.

   The dead woman had filed for divorce just a week before she was found dead after months of estrangement over Jeremy Loncar’s five month long affair with coworker and neighbor Stacy Johnson.
   The family was rebuffed by the West Wendover Police Department, which they later insinuated was some how in cahoots with Jeremy Loncar to keep the case closed. The police, the family asserted, never treated AnneMarie’s room as a crime scene, never collected any evidence and closed the case a week after the woman died.
   The family believed that West Wendover Police Department personnel too close to Jeremy Loncar a fellow employee of the city, to properly conduct the investigation.
   The Lemons began to lobby Elko District Attorney Gary Woodbury who also rebuffed them.
   “He said we had valid suspicions,” said a family member who declined to be identified. “But looking at the autopsy report he said there wasn’t anything he could do.”
   However the family persisted and the doubts Woodbury himself had about the way the case was handled began to mount.
   A year after she was found dead Woodbury officially reopened the case. As it came out in the trial, Woodbury’s major obstacle was pathologist Kathy Raven and here report that exonerated Jeremy Loncar.
   During the trial it became apparent that Woodbury spent the better part of a year trying to cajole perhaps intimidate Raven to if not change her opinion then to give the state just enough wiggle room to concede that it was not out of the realm of possibility that AnneMarie Loncar my have died at the hands of another.
   Raven refused.
   In testimony and statement it was quite apparent that dispute between the DA and the pathologist became personnel.
   Raven refused to reconsider her previous findings and refused even to read material Woodbury sent to her office suggesting that she may have over looked something.
   During questioning Raven, who normally testifies for the state was treated almost as a hostile witness by Woodbury and out of the jury’s hearing Woodbury even suggested that Raven may have intentionally disregarded concerns from the victim’s family that Raven overlooked certain facts regarding AnneMarie Loncar.
   That assertion elicited a “Wow!” from the normally staid and reserved District Judge Michael Memeo.
   The open warfare between the District Attorney and the pathologist colored the entire trial.
   Loncar’s counsel Donald York Evans effectively played on that obvious animosity not only in his questioning of Raven, but also in his examination of the other pathologists called by both the prosecution and the defense.
   In this one aspect it was a role reversal.
   In most murder cases the pathologist on the state’s payroll is if not the chief then at least a primary witness for the prosecution, the most the defense can usually hope for is to elicit just enough wiggle room to place an once of reasonable doubt in the minds of at least one juror.
   In the Loncar trial it was the prosecution which desperately needed that wiggle room and did not get it.
   Forensic evidence has grown in importance in the last several years and Woodbury may have felt what is known as the CSI effect. Prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges call it that after the crime-scene shows that are among the hottest attractions on television. The shows —CSI and CSI: Miami, in particular — feature high-tech labs and glib and gorgeous techies. By shining a glamorous light on a gory profession, the programs also have helped to draw more students into forensic studies.

   But the programs also foster what analysts say is the mistaken notion that criminal science is fast and infallible and always gets its man. That’s affecting the way lawyers prepare their cases, as well as the expectations that police and the public place on real crime labs. Real crime-scene investigators say that because of the programs, people often have unrealistic ideas of what criminal science can deliver.
   But while acquitted of criminal charges Jeremy Loncar may find himself again at trial for the murder of his wife.
   According to a family member, the Lemons are considering filing a civil action against the former fire fighter alleging of the wrongful death of his wife.
   The hurdle to prevail in such a civil suit is much lower than a criminal trial. In a civil suit the plaintiff only have to prove the preponderance of evidence suggests the defendant was responsible for the death of another.
   Still given the adamant refusal of the chief pathologist to admit anything beyond her finding that AnneMarie Loncar died of natural causes even that lower hurdle may be unclearable.

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