The Case of the Drowning Men (12 page)

Minnesota
,
Wisconsin,
Iowa, Illinois
, Miss
ouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana
—
wh
at
ever
state
you view it from
—i
t
seems immovable
,
this vast and awesome waterway
.
Yet
even it has changed its course
at times, th
roughout
thousands of years
, whenever it became clogged and inefficient
,
seeking
a
better
, more direct
route
to its conclusion
,
and
once more
setting itself right.

"Someone is out there, walking around, that killed my son. I have no doubt. This is something we are not letting go until we have justice for Todd.”
Kathy Geib, m
other of drowning victim Todd Geib

M
ICHIGAN
- March 18, 2010
:
“
An Ottawa County mother tonight says
she has proof
her son
did not accidental
ly
drown
in 2005
but was murdered,
and wants police to take a new look at
his case
.”

- - -

The Great Lakes cover an enormous swath of
real estate
in North America, their deep, cold waters keeping things cool or frigid
in the northland
for nearly ten months out of the year.
Things don’t
really
begin to heat up in th
is
watery
territory until July and August when, with all the humidity
that
th
e
region
builds
,
a scorching summertime
arrives
which
is characteristically sticky and muggy.
But i
t is a brief heat
,
oppressive
as
it
might
feel
at
times
,
and
more than
welcome
.
Then, toward the final weeks of September, with the
hours of
day
light
suddenly
decreas
ing,
everything
abruptly starts
to
cool again
and a showy
but short
autumn descends
before the
deep
freeze
sets in
.

It’s still
late spring
up here in
May and
June. The days are mild and the nights cool but pleasant.
Daytime temperatures are gradually rising
as
summer
slowly
advances
,
though
, and,
as the mercury
starts to
climb
, the
rivers and lakes
are
steadily
getting warmer
,
too.

But they’re still pretty cold
in
the first weeks of
June
.
A bit too unbearable
yet
for swimming.

O
n June 11th
of
2005
,
o
utdoor enthusiast
Todd Geib, 22, was last seen alive leaving
a
bonfire
party
in Muskegon County
, Michigan,
heading
on foot
for
his
nearby
residence
.
H
is
final
contact with friends
was
sometime after midnight
when he placed
a
n emergency
cellphone call
in which he
report
ed
having difficulty breathing and
being
“
lost in a field
.
”

An unsuccessful search was launched
for him
when it
was
determined he was missing
,
but
by June
27th
the local
police
had
beg
u
n
informing
news
reporters and
Geib
’s
family that
they had
information
from unnamed sources
that
Todd had been
hit by a car and buried
somewhere
.

However, regardless of this quasi-official version
of
his whereabouts
, three weeks after Geib
mysterious
ly
disappear
ed
, a couple
discovered
his
body in Ovidhall
Lake in Casnovia Township
,
a rural
,
wooded section
already
extensively
searched
by
at least
1500
rescue
personnel
and community volunteers
.

Promptly thereafter, w
ith
autopsy and toxicology reports still pending
,
police
ruled
the death a drowning
due to
over-
intoxication and closed the investigation
as an
accident
.

But
Todd
Geib's mother
all along
believe
d
he
r son
to be the victim of foul play
and
repeatedly
requested
the
police
investigation
into his death
be
reopened
and completed
.
She
felt
the suspicious circumstances of her son’s
alleged drowning
were
completely
identical with
a number of
other
regional
cases
in which
young men
vanished into thin air
and then were
found
dead
in nearby
water
many
weeks or month
s
later,
and that, similarly,
her son’s
case
was not given
the
th
o
rough review
it deserved from
law enforcement
.

It
was
w
ith th
ose
belief
s
lodged firmly in
t
he
i
r heart
s
that
the
Geib
family
ultimately
enlisted the aid
of
seasoned investigator and
attorney
Trish DeAngelis
, asking her
to review their son’s case and to assist them in their pursuit of justice.

A former New York District Attorney, DeAngelis agreed
, upon close scrutiny
of the
Geib files
,
that there were
many
troubling
inconsistencies
which
merited further investigation
by the police
.
She
then
delivered
Todd
Geib’s
autopsy report and
related
attachment
s to Dr. Michael Sikirica, a board certified Forensic Pathologist and CEO of Forensic Identification and Profiling
Laboratory who
,
in turn
,
c
onsulted
with
his
own
team
of experts
as well as
others
in the
medical
profession
.

Sikirica also
went another step further and
shared
the file at an international convention of Medical Examiners
, with th
e
result that more than
200 of
th
o
se attendees
agreed
with
his
final
findings:
Todd
Geib
was dead
for
only two to five
days
of
the
entire
three
weeks
he’d been missing
.

In a letter
then
sent to Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague
and
dated October 7, 2009,
former D
.
A
.
DeAngelis stated
she was absolutely convinced by the
body of
evidence
, “
that Todd died no more than 48 to 72 hours before his body was recovered,” and that the autopsy and recovery photos
, including the postmortem
blood/alcohol level of only 0.12
percent,
simply
could not support the original finding of an accidental drowning, nor that Todd
Geib
died the night he disappeared.

Prosecutor
Tague forwarded
that
letter to
the Michigan State Police
for renewed consideration
,
but, a
fter three months,
the
police
informed the Geib family they had no intention of reopening
Todd
Geib
’s case.

The Geib
f
amily has
s
ince
launched a Facebook campaign in hopes of overturning that decision.
V
iew
their
Facebook profile page
for more information
about
the late
Todd Geib
or to join their efforts
to
persuade
the police
to
Reopen Todd Geib
’
s Case
.