Murky Waters
WHEN THE REVEREND Marcus Sims, the ride-along clergyman, appeared in the hard, flat light of the 18th precinct courtroom and ended the long vigil, he said that he had bad news and worse news. At that point, two had been found. They to hear shortly about the others. Nobody spoke as the pressure went out of the room. It seemed to the dozen family members that they all inhaled at once, and that when let the breath go it was into another life. It was then that the stillness began- the stopping of time.
Chanel Ruffin entered into a blank disbelief. "You sure you have the right kids?" she asked. Robert Johnson Jr. crumpled to the floor. Pearlie Herring began grabbing fistfuls of air. Robert Johnson Dontel’s grandfather, just stood there. "It’s them drug dealers, he said. "They been on them boys." A detective responded that the initial word was that an accident had taken place. Chanel thought. Get the camera. She told the others to meet her at the morgue, then rushed home and grabbed the family’s Polaroid and video cameras.
When the families arrived at the medical examiner’s office, 8:30 Wednesday morning, the autopsies had already begun. They erupted in horror. An assistant examiner explained that it was crucial to begin the procedures as soon as possible and that legally they did not need permission. Chanel demanded to see the children and was refused. When the chief examiner, Dr. Haresh Mirchandani, heard of the demand, he relented. But, he said, since the procedures had already begun, the families would have to view from a separate room via closed-circuit TV. Even then, they would be allowed to see only the faces. "Hell, no!" Chanel yelled, and something in her voice convinced the officials that it would be wise to let her have her way.
The police continued to misstate facts. On Wednesday, Inspector O’Connor relayed to reporters relaying it to the families, the Ruffins claim that the bodies showed no signs of physical abuse. "No signs of foul play" he told the Inquierer. Yet in Chanel’s Polaroids, the boys looked savaged. Kenny had an inky-black swelling above his right eyebrow as irregular and hard as a knuckle, that pulled the skin of his eye socket into a concave shape. Jamie’s face was and red, as if someone had been stubbing out cigarettes. Chanel says Dontel had a black eye, but the Johnsons forbade pictures. Mirchandani has attributed these to the nibblings of aquatic animals which often target the soft tissues of the faces and heads of drowning victims.
Yet nothing seemed right. Kenny’s ear- ring had been ripped out-there was a long, straight tear from the hole to the tip of the lobe. It wasn’t at all "nibble-like" -no flesh was or removed in a piecemeal way. "Have to be a strong fish to rip an earring clean out, Chanel says. Much later, when confronted with another possibility-that Jamie, who wound up clutching his friend at the bottom, could have ripped out while to keep his head above the surface-Chanel says, "Possible. But I don’t buy it.”
The preliminary autopsy reports determined that all four died by drowning and hypothermia. But this, too, might not have been true. The Ruffins say that according to the final autopsy report, Kenny’s lungs hadn’t completely filled with water, indicating that they could have been closed when he entered the river. (The medical examiner declines to comment on the point.) This meant he could have had an asthma attack prior to entering the water. If so, what then? Would a boy having a breathing seizure due to fear, pollen from the weed patch, whatever-which rendered him all but incapable of movement, jump into the water of his own accord – knowing he couldn’t swim?
