Mom questions son's death

She Says Police Never Provided Report Of Incident

Or Autopsy

Oralandar Brand-Williams/The Detroit News

Westland– By her own admission, Mary Brady knows her son was no angel.

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Though Donald Murray had served prison time on numerous offenses, Brady says he was trying to put his life back in order. She said it was a challenge for her 39-year-old son to tear himself from the grips of his crack cocaine addiction, but he was making a big effort at it. For that, she said, he didn’t deserve a horrible death.

 

In the midmorning of Saturday, July 30, Murray allegedly broke into the home of an elderly woman and attacked her. Police were called to the home and, in different police accounts, Murray is portrayed as an out-of-control subject who had to be restrained and eventually Tasered.

 

“He continued to struggle by tightening his arm muscles and trying to pull his arms free from us,” wrote an officer in a report on the incident that Brady says led to her son’s death.

 

“Due to the man’s level of resistance he was using to try and escape, and in compliance with department policy, (a police Sgt.) used his department-issued Taser on the man to stop the aggression and get him restrained,” according to the written account.

 

Murray began experiencing labored breathing and later was administered CPR by one of the officers, according to police. He was taken to Garden City Hospital for treatment but was pronounced dead on arrival.

 

Brady said she never heard from police concerning her son’s death. In fact, she said, she heard of his death second-hand. She went to the police department on Monday.

 

“They called five people, but they never once called me,” said Brady.

 

Police procedure in the event of a death is to notify next of kin. She said she couldn’t understand why the call never came, but when Brady saw her son’s body at the morgue, she knew.

 

“I fell to my knees when I saw his face,” Brady said.

 

Murray’s body contained circular red wounds and gashes on his legs, and Brady said his body was full of bruises and even had a plastic item sticking out of one part of his legs, said his mother. His face was badly bruised.

 

“The funeral home director said he couldn’t get the plastic thing out of his (right) leg,” said Brady.

 

Brady contends that the police statements just don’t add up, and she believes something more sinister happened to her son. Brady

is considering filing a lawsuit and has retained an attorney, who has hired his own investigator.

 

The said she has not received a police report, a cause of death or an autopsy report on her son. She said all the mystery surrounding the case makes it even more suspicious.

 

Brady’s lawyer, Southfield attorney Daniel Romano, said the police accounts just don’t add up.

 

“There are lots of gaps in what the police got there,” said Romano, who got involved in the case in August.

 

“(Murray) was combative but something killed him, and it wasn’t the fight,” added Romano. “He was killed by the police, I think.”

 

Efforts to reach officials for the Westland Police Department for comment on the incident were not successful.

 

Brady said the matter also is being investigated by the FBI.

 

“We cannot confirm or deny an ongoing investigation,” said FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold.

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(313) 222-2027

 

From The Detroit News:

http://detnews.com/article/20111208/METRO02/112080360/Mom-questions-son’s-death#ixzz1g4EHxLaP