On September 17th, 1998, 44 days after my brother was murdered, we finally had our meeting. Chief Medical Examiner, Margaret Greenwald, DC Medical Examiner, Michael Ferenc, Jim Ferland (former Chief of Police, Presque Isle), Detective Joe Zamboni, Chief Glenn Ross, Bruce Buchannon and my family attended. My family and I had compiled a list of 42 questions that we wanted explanations to. We didn't get satisfactory answers to these questions. One question was " Has the gun been tested and proved to be the one that killed my brother?" The answer was "No". No one was able to explain the bullet holes in the sheet and blanket.
My mother suggested that maybe someone came to my brother's door and held a gun on him. She further stated that my brother would have probably done anything, as would anyone else, if he had a .44 Magnum or another gun pointed in his face. DC ME Michael Ferenc stated, "Bring us some proof that there was forced entry or someone had broken in (to his home) or something had been stolen. I wondered why is it our job to bring these people the evidence. Why haven't they done this themselves?
Mr. Ferenc presented to us his theory that was even more ridiculous than Detective Zamboni's. According to Dr. Ferenc, my brother shot himself once in the chest while lying down, got up (in the dark as there were no lights on at my brother's home when neighbors, Tony and Lynn, returned home from church at 9:30 P.M. the night my brother was murdered), circled around his bed with blood dripping, laid down on the other side of the bed, went to get a washcloth (to muffle the sound), got back into bed, falls back exactly over the hole in the mattress that lined up perfectly with the hole in his back, and then had enough life left in him to shoot himself again in the neck.
When my brother's body was taken to Augusta the night of August 5th, an autopsy was supposed to have been performed. The photographs taken at the crime scene did not accompany the body. It was later brought to our attention that these photographs did not develop due to a "malfunction" or "loading problem" of film. Apparently, the Penobscot County Sheriff's Department has a camera within its department that has a history of malfunctioning and it was this camera Sheriff Goodall brought to the crime scene. Our private investigator later learned that Medical Examiner Ferenc was furious that there were no photographs accompanying the body and threw a "temper tantrum", further more deeming all tests including an autopsy unnecessary. Margaret Greenwald later stated that the photographs were not needed because it was obviously a suicide!
After our meeting on September 17th, we left the gun and two bullets and the sheet and blanket for further testing at our request. The two bullets hadn't been tested to see if they matched the gun. We left the ME's office that day discouraged, not knowing what to do or where to go next.