Prosecutors dropped a murder charge Tuesday against a man accused of killing his 19-year-old girlfriend after a forensic pathologist reversed himself and said he didn't know how the woman died.
Wayne County Prosecutor Mike Shipman said he was left with no case against James McFarland, 25, after Dr. Joseph Czaja signed an affidavit saying he couldn't conclusively state the cause of Erin Stanley's Sept. 1, 2007, death. The case drew national attention six days after Stanley's death when her younger sister died mysteriously in the same home.
The pathologist, who had previously said Stanley was strangled, changed his testimony as jury selection for McFarland's trial was under way.
"I had no legal basis to continue because there has to be a declaration that it's a homicide, and that was taken away at the last moment," Shipman said Tuesday.
Czaja had previously said in two depositions that Stanley had been strangled in her bed, basing his conclusion in part on an autopsy that found blood in her throat and larynx, Shipman said.
But Czaja testified during a pretrial hearing Monday that he changed his finding because blood was drawn from her neck before the autopsy. Czaja did not immediately return a telephone call Tuesday to his office in Fort Wayne.
Stanley was found unresponsive at her parents' home in Centerville, about 70 miles east of Indianapolis. She and McFarland were living at the family home with their infant daughter.
Stanley's 18-year-old sister, Kelly, was found dead in the home six days later. An autopsy determined that Kelly Stanley had died of a seizure, although Shipman said Tuesday that Kelly Stanley had no history of seizures.
While a judge agreed to drop the murder charge against McFarland, he remained jailed on a child support complaint.
McFarland's attorney, Terry O'Maley, said his client was innocent in Erin Stanley's death.
"He didn't get away with anything," O'Maley said.
A new case could be brought against McFarland because a jury was never seated, and there is no statute of limitations on murder cases in Indiana. But Shipman said Tuesday "the case is finished, absent new information developing."