Got my friend’s autopsy results back…

She fell off her horse back in 2012, and not only got dragged but her helmet apparently her helmet split in half from the impact. Not only did she have a leg injury that required surgery, but we believe she had a brain injury that was not properly treated, and resulted in the angry outbursts and vulgar behavior that alienated numerous family and friends including Amanda and me.

Emily was relatively short, and getting into a Sierra HD was not easy. This was not a traumatic injury, just a relatively small amount of pain resulting from stubbornness.

 

@TnShooter

I have also never seen anybody as seemingly eternally grateful as Emily’s mom and dad, both because we were brave enough to drive to their daughter’s condo in a severe thunderstorm because we knew something was wrong, and for taking Hannah in.

 

I am sure they are, What you two did for their daughter was a great thing.

I can't say the same for me. I'm pretty bad at calling and keeping up with friends and family.
I keep up with TW more than I do my own family.

 

RIP
U guys r good friends.

 

Just over 70 days since we got a gut feeling that something was wrong and drove to the home of Amanda's best friend, and found her deceased on her living room couch. Like I've said countless times before, finding a body isn't what's getting to us all these weeks later; Amanda is struggling a bit more than me due to her PTSD, but she has gotten a lot better as well. What's getting to us is the fact that we found our friend's body.

We both attempted to reach Emily by call and text numerous times between roughly 8:05PM and 8:32PM; Amanda has a sixth sense when it comes to this type of thing, and the unattended death of her birth mother less than three months earlier is what ultimately fueled our decision to get in the truck and drive to Emily's condo in a severe thunderstorm.

Amanda's mother lived an hour away in Coatesville, and she was also giving her a bit of a cold shoulder due to a disagreement they'd had just two days before her death. It still pisses us both off that she decomposed in her apartment for the entire weekend, and then some, after Valentine's Day without anybody noticing anything (like the fact that they hadn't seen her in a few days, or the obvious smell of a dead body ). We were determined to keep Emily from suffering the same indignity as Amanda's mother, and the fact she lived only 15 minutes from my house made things easier. Seriously, we probably left my house before 8:25PM, got there at 8:35-8:36PM, and called 911 at 9:40PM.

When we first left my house, I held onto hope that she was either sleeping or taking a shower, but the bad feeling got worse and worse the closer we got to her house. I just knew that I was going to find something that would result in me calling 911, and the fact that I asked Amanda "Are you prepared for what we might find?" before pulling out of the driveway is downright chilling. I also asked Amanda twice if she thought Emily was dead, to which she responded that she didn't know or didn't want to make an assumption.

While Emily's car being in her reserved spot at a little past 8:30PM on a Saturday night was hardly out of the ordinary, but rounding that corner and seeing it there even gave me a bad feeling; I have no idea why. Her dad drives it every once in a while to keep it from deteriorating, but it has largely stayed in that spot for the last two months. Once he gets the title in his name, he will sell it.

Anyway, looking back on it, that white Outlander being parked in the Emily's assigned space didn't bother me that much. However, running up the sidewalk to Emily's condo and seeing all the lights off DEFINITELY gave me a bad feeling! I knew that she was in there, and I knew at that point that she was very likely in some sort of distress; I certainly was not expecting to look through the front window and see her on the couch, but I thought she was still alive for the roughly 15 minutes between our arrival and when the cop came out and told us that she was no longer alive. It had been such a relatively short time since her passing when we found her that she looked like she was merely passed out on the couch, and the lights being off added to the illusion. However, for the TV not to be on in Emily's home on a Saturday night was a good enough reason to call 911!

 

Since I started dating Amanda back in 2023, I had the misfortune of accidentally waking up Emily while the two of them were still living together, and it is not pretty when that happens. Both incidents involved Amanda oversleeping when I'd arrived to take her to work, at which point I'd arrive and start banging on a door or window because she wasn't answering her phone. Waking up Emily, when she did not ask to be woken up, can best be described as comparable to waking a sleeping bear. This was one of many unpredictable behaviors Emily had in the last two years of her life, which ultimately drove us away, but let me tell you something...

At that very moment, I had never wanted so badly for Emily to wake up and start cussing at me than I did at that very moment! I started pounding on the window, so hard that I'm shocked I didn't shatter it, while simultaneously screaming Emily's name; Emily obviously could not hear us, but as stated above, the fact that every single light in the condo was off gave the illusion that she unconscious. Well, at first we thought she might be asleep, but Emily would generally be watching TV on Saturday night. Regardless, she may as well have been asleep in the eyes of anybody who saw her through that window.

Then, we both started pounding on the window and door, and screaming her name; Amanda thought she saw Emily's stomach rise and fall twice, which made us incorrectly assume that she was in medical distress, but merely unconscious and still alive. I had brought a sledgehammer with me from home, just in case, but Amanda and I made a decision to call 911 first. The 911 dispatcher told me that I would be well within my rights to smash my way in, but that she had an officer two minutes away and it wouldn't be necessary; I am glad that I didn't force my way into that condo!

The cop showed up first, and while I was directing the cop to Emily's condo, the ambulance showed up. The EMT made it up to the patio first, followed by the paramedic. The cop got a clear view of Emily on the couch through that window, and he told the EMT to kick the door in. The EMT went in first, and I believe he turned on the lights, giving us our first clear view of Emily. The moment those lights came on, it shattered the allusion that Emily was still alive; Amanda later said she knew immediately that Emily was dead, and looking back on it, I knew too. We found Emily probably 12 to 13 hours after she passed, and she was in remarkably good condition, but she just didn't look right. I tried to follow them in, but the cop told me to stay outside, and we were relegated to watching through the window. I don't even think I looked at Emily for a minute before the blinds were closed, but looking back on it, I knew she was dead; I didn't want to believe it, and I had never seen a dead body before that hadn't been carefully prepped for a funeral so I didn't 100% realize at the time what I was looking at, but I still have a vivid memory of it and I knew she was gone.

In the minute or so before the blinds were closed, we saw them hook up the 12-lead EKG to Emily, but then the blinds were closed; Amanda told me that it was at this moment she knew for sure that Emily was dead, even before the cop came out onto the patio and told us. As stated above, I was fortunate in that I had never seen a "fresh" body before; I went to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Franklin Institute in early 2006, less than two months before I turned 17. That was the first time I saw "dead bodies", but that was obviously nothing like finding a "fresh" corpse. I went to an open casket for the first time in November 2007, at the age of 18, when my grandpa lost his battle with lung cancer. I do not believe that I went to another open casket funeral until close to a decade after my grandpa died, but I believe I've been to at least six open caskets total; I've lost count of how many funerals I've been to in the last twenty years or so, but only five or six of those were open caskets.

In February 2024, Amanda and I went to the funeral of our former teacher's 21-year old son Alex, who died in a car accident. That was an open casket, and by far the most tragic cause of death of all the funerals I've been to. However, while it was tragic, seeing a college-age kid's body in a casket was no worse than any other viewing I'd been to. Yes, it was heartbreaking, but I knew that I was going to a funeral and I made a conscious decision to go up to that casket; Amanda also went up to Alex's body.

If Emily had died and someone else had found her, or if she'd been in an ambulance or at a hospital, then it would have still been tragic; Emily was cremated, but if her family had opted to have an open casket, seeing her body at the funeral without having discovered it at her house wouldn't have bothered either of us in the slightest.

But we found her body...

We were concerned for our friend, and we made a conscious decision to get in my truck and drive to her condo, in a severe thunderstorm no less! We both knew Emily well enough to know that since she was not answering her phone or responding to text messages, there was a very good chance that we would be finding her body. It fucking sucks, but that's the truth...

Would we do anything differently? HELL NO!

Well, maybe we would have gone to check on her a little bit earlier in the day knowing what we know now, but other than that we would not have changed a thing about we handled things; I start work at 8am on Saturdays, and work until 1pm. Amanda is off on Saturdays and generally sleeps in, sometimes not getting out of bed until almost noon; Emily woke up at about 7:30am to walk Hannah and start her day. We believe that she may have gotten up a little earlier because she wasn't feeling well, but we don't believe she ever took Hannah out before she died because the police found that Hannah had a couple accidents in the house.

As I've said before, Emily's ex-boyfriend Dennis last heard from her via text at 9:59pm on Friday, May 2nd; I am talking to Amanda as I type this, and she is now thinking it's entirely possible that Emily passed late on Friday night. We were thinking that she spent the night in her bed, but the cop might have been right on the money when he told us she'd been for gone at least a day.

It's going to drive me nuts, but we will never know exactly when she died...

 

You are doing good for yourself "talking" about it, I think it helps the healing process.

I lost both parents in my 20's, my brother a couple years later and to many friends since. I felt I dealt with those experiences well; but lately I think I could have done better. I spend more time than I think I should missing those folks as I get on in age.

Best of luck to you

 

TW is like a second family to me!

Did you actually find your parents' bodies, or your brother's? I do no worse dealing with the death of someone I care about than anybody else. The fact that we found her body is what's dragging this out. I've had a very easy life in my 36 years on this earth, with zero trauma whatsoever. I was bullied in grade school, but compared to what other people went through, even my experiences with bullies wasn't particularly traumatic.

We all die. Death is just a fact of life. and I am prepared for the fact that I could be at the bedside of a loved one as they pass away. However, the difference there is they will likely have a terminal illness and I will be expecting it; I can remember the day I met Emily, in high school back in 2006. Emily was a physically fit horseback rider then, and I never would have guessed that I'd find her dead from a blood clot in less than twenty years.

The other part that is getting to me is that I'm alive and well, and free to do as I please; Emily was born in November 1988 and I was born in March 1989. Emily and I were the same age, 36.

Emily will never again be able to watch TV, eat a hot meal, drive a car, go on a date, have sex, earn a paycheck - those are all things I take for granted. Emily will never have a baby, own a home, finish college (she had recently gone back to college), or see her nieces and nephews grow up. Today, Amanda (my girlfriend) and I were at a car show, and I felt guilt just based on the fact that I was enjoying myself at a car show and Emily essentially no longer exists (she was cremated).

 

Find the body, no watched my brother take his last breath in the hospital as I held his hand and told him it was ok to go....he was 33 yrs old

 

What did he die of, if you don't mind me asking? Our friend Emily was overweight and supremely unhealthy. She did not drink alcohol, smoke, or do drugs. Her toxicology report turned up nothing suspicious.

The other really sad part is that she died alone. Well, her dog was with her, but you know what I mean...

Your brother had the comfort of knowing that you were with him to the very end. We are pretty sure that Emily went peacefully in her sleep, but it goes without saying that this could have ended much differently if Amanda hadn't gotten the premonition that something wasn't right. She could have been in the condo for three days or more, which would have caused even more problems. We know she died somewhere between 10PM on Friday and 8AM on Saturday, but because she wasn't dead for very long and the A/C was on, she was still in good condition.

 

@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@slossboss
@steelcity2

So, this evening, we met the paramedic who kicked in Emily's door and thanked him for his efforts. I called the fire department's non-emergency number while transporting a Silverado from Pipersville back to Doylestown. The guy who answered was unable to give any names, but knew exactly who I was talking about based on the date and time of the 911 call, and said that he was working tonight and we could stop by the firehouse.

Amanda did not want to go at first, but she changed her mind. Contrary to what was said by the firefighter I sold the window A/C to, the larger guy in the reflective jacket is the paramedic, and the smaller guy carrying the equipment is the EMT. The paramedic's name is Kevin, and he is a very nice guy. We shook his hand, and he was able to answer some previously unanswered questions about Emily's death. Kevin has been doing what he does for twenty years, and he has seen enough over the years that he has a pretty good idea of how long a person has been deceased...

He believes that Emily had been gone for roughly 6 to 12 hours at the time we found her. Emily's mom told us the coroner told her that Emily had been gone for about 8 hours, so this makes sense. This means that Emily survived the night and slept in her bed Saturday into Sunday, since her phone was charging in her bedroom. Also, I previous said that one of the EMS guys had told Amanda that Emily was in full rigor. There was a misunderstanding; Emily was going into rigor, but not fully stiff. She really hadn't been gone for long by the time we found her.

I also sent an email to Horsham PD on Sunday, requesting to thank the responding officer for his response and possibly meet him (Amanda was on board with this), and got a response from a Lieutenant with the department within a day. He is currently on vacation for a week, but will look up the case files and let the officer know that I reached out.

We talked to Emily's mom today and filled her in on what we'd learned. So, we know Emily's cause of death and some basic info about the autopsy results, but the county wants $500 for the full autopsy report. They also want an additional $100 for the toxicology report, and will only allow the tox report to be purchased if the autopsy results are purchased; Emily's mom is not poor, but she doesn't want to spend $600. Does anybody else think that it is cruel to make a dead person's mother pay for their full autopsy report?!?!