DEAD IN THE WATER: new evidence, new rulings

In November 1981, during a dragged out and drunken argument with her husband on his yacht The Splendour, 43-year-old actress Natalie Wood "accidentally" fell overboard and drowned. Her angry, soused spouse, actor Robert Wagner, then waited almost two full hours before reporting his wife missing. Shortly thereafter rescue personnel fished Wood's lifeless body out of the Pacific Ocean--covered front to back with bruises and lacerations, some of them "fresh," some "recent," some a "day old" or more.

 

Three decades later, based upon those suspicious injuries and the tireless pursuit for justice by the victim's family, authorities finally relented and overturned the determination that Natalie Wood drowned by "accident." They are now investigating her death as a likely homicide, with Robert Wagner the prime suspect.

 

In November 2012, under circumstances yet to be determined, Joshua Swalls, 22, went missing in Indianapolis. A few days later, after one of his shoes was discovered on the bank of a nearby retention pond, divers searched the small body of water but found nothing in it. Nevertheless, three weeks later someone sighted Swalls' body floating there and the cadaver was then sent to the coroner's office for examination. He had only been in the water for approximately 7 to 10 days, they say...

 

Unlike Wood, Swalls was found to have no drugs or alcohol in his system, yet he too had a number of bruises and lacerations which he'd received before dying. Namely “contusions of the right forehead and eyebrow, bridge of nose, and right zygomatic arch in the shape of  a reverse C, continuous” with an “abrasion of tip of nose” and “abraded contusions to kneecaps, bilateral and to shins, multiple bilateral, with one underlying a tear in the left pants leg.”

 

The Marion County Coroner's Office has been asked to revisit their autopsy findings, and is pondering now whether in fact Josh Swalls' death was truly accidental. Yet the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department still adamantly insists it was and refuses to investigate.

 

As part of my continuing efforts to assist the Swalls family in obtaining justice for their murdered son, I did a comparative analysis of both the Wood and Swalls drowning events including their autopsies, which was published this week on Crime Magazine. Help keep the pressure on the Indy authorities: Read DEAD IN THE WATER, and share the info in it with everyone.
 

 

UP NEXT: 'Mystery At Tupper Lake'

 

 

A missing youth and a dead serial killer. Are they connected?

 

 

BREAKING NEWS: Joshua Swalls (Smiley screwed up again)

INDIANAPOLIS - Toxicology reports have just been released for Joshua Swalls, 22, who mysteriously vanished this past November and was then found "drowned" three weeks later in a nearby retention pond that had already been scoured by divers the same week he went missing.

 

No drugs or alcohol whatsoever in the body of this young man.

 

That new evidence, coupled with the recent toxicology finding concerning 'drown' victim Matt Ward, who like Swalls also disappeared under suspicious circumstances from downtown Indianapolis, means the typical "he was drunk and drowned" story officials always issue in these cases now has a zillion little holes in it. 

 

Despite police claims that Ward was heavily intoxicated when he drowned in October 2012, Ward's tox report showed him to be only slightly above the legal limit for driving an automobile. A fact which proves that the 911 call he made seconds before he went missing was not "just a misdial" as Indy metro-police are now insisting.

 

Matt Ward's emergency cellphone call was placed during a physical altercation in a parking lot with a bouncer from the Landsharks nightclub. The bouncer was never questioned by police and they say he has since "left town."

 

The Swalls and Ward reports are major achievements in The Case Of the Drowning Men. Normally medical examiners quickly rubberstamp investigators' assertions  that a missing young man simply drank too much and fell into the water and perished. Therefore, even when the evidence clearly points to foul play, they'll pull a high BAC reading out of their hat instead, so to support the bogus ruling. Rarely will a coroner's office perform comprehensive tox reports on Smiley Face victims unless they feel publicly pressured to...

 

So let's keep the heat on Smiley then. We're finally getting somewhere.

 

Eponymous Rox

 

 

Voices for the Dead: Interview #2

"His dream was to have his own garage . . . He had a lot of passion for his job and took every opportunity to learn all he could.”

 

On November 4th 2012, Joshua Swalls, 22, mysteriously vanished from the city of Indianapolis while visiting a friend. Three weeks later he reappeared again in a nearby retention pond, drowned.

Dive recovery experts on the scene said Swall's body had been in the water for only about a week, but police have ceased to investigate his death and are suggesting he accidentally drowned while swimming. 

 

His family disagrees. They believe Josh Swalls was murdered. Eponymous Rox for Killing Killers interviewed them, and officially registered their voices for the dead.

 

Post Mortem

 

Mayhem in the Morgue and Metropolis?
 

 

'DROWNING IN NEGLECT'

 

A Crime Magazine exclusive exposé of life, sudden-death, and business as usual in the fair city of Indianapolis, by Eponymous Rox.

(Look for it there now.)

Smiley Face Interviews

Posting advance notice to readers that the parents of Matthew Ward and of Joshua Swalls will each be giving Killing Killers in depth interviews in early December concerning their sons' disappearances and drownings in Indiana this past October and November.

 

This will hopefully shed additional light on these suspicious deaths, as well as to call more public attention to the young mens' cases so police will feel compelled to continue to investigate them.

 

The first interview, regarding Matt, is scheduled to go live here in the opening days of December, followed shortly thereafter by Joshua's. Photos will accompany.

All interviews will be permanently featured on the Voices For the Dead page.

 

The Ward Drowning - Overview

 

On October 24, 2012, the body of Walton "Matt" Ward was recovered from the White River near 64th Street and Westfield Boulevard in Indianapolis. The 23-year-old man had gone missing on Oct. 12th.

Ward was visiting from California and planned to hook up with a girl he'd met on Cupid.com. His mother said she dropped him off outside Peppers Bar where the two had arranged to meet, but then never saw her son again.

 

The owner of the pub confirmed that Ward was there alone and stayed for about an hour or so before departing alone as well. The girl never showed.

At around 10:30 that same night Ward checked in with his mother by cell phone to say he was okay, but at approximately 1:30 a.m. on October 13th he placed a 911 call from his cell which only lasted for one second before terminating. Shortly thereafter Ward disappeared.

Detectives traced the call back to a cell phone tower in Broad Ripple near where his drowned corpse was ultimately found almost two weeks later.

 

The Swalls Drowning - Overview

 

Joshua Swalls, 22, vanished without a trace from a friend's apartment in Indianapolis where he was staying this November, leaving behind his cell phone, keys, and car. Allegedly, he was last seen in the early morning hours of November 4th, 2012.

 

A few days after he went missing, police say they found a shoe in the vicinity of the residential complex which they believe may have belonged to Swalls and so a tactical dive team then fruitlessly searched for his body in the nearby retention pond for approximately an hour.

 

Extensive searches by Swalls' family and friends were also conducted throughout the neighborhood in the days and weeks that followed, and similarly produced no results.

 

On November 23, Swalls' body was discovered floating in the same retention pond that had been already searched. He was subsequently identified by the family the day after. 

 

Autopsy & Toxicology Reports

 

In both cases the young men's deaths were immediately ruled accidental drownings. As of this writing, BAC and other toxicology tests are still pending.