EAST LANSING, Mich. – Should the case of Brendan Santo’s death have been closed?
Santo was visiting the Michigan State University campus for a football game when he vanished. He was missing for 84 days before his body was found in the Red Cedar River. His death was ruled an accidental drowning, but there are still many questions left unanswered.
Local 4 Investigator Karen Drew obtained the autopsy report, police reports, and spoke with a medical examiner who said this case would have been best left undetermined, not closed.
Karen Drew’s full coverage on this case includes interviews with a medical examiner and private investigator. The story begins airing at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, on Local 4 and Local 4+.
---> Here’s a look at the case so far.
Medical examiner on autopsy report
Brendan Santo’s autopsy report has his official cause of death listed as an accidental drowning.
According to the report, there was no water found in his lungs. There were “trace amounts of brown viscous liquid and granular material” found in his stomach.
Local 4 Investigator Karen Drew brought the report to Chief Oakland County Medical Examiner Ljubisa Dragovic to get his professional opinion.
Here is what Dragovic said:
What about the lungs?
“Well, this is a big question. Not everybody that is submerged and found submerged resulted there from drowning. A person may be dead before being placed in the body of water. Generally, the careful evaluation of all the possible and available materials there lead you to a conclusion. If it is not possible to conclude, then the case is best left undetermined, not closed, because there is a good suspicion that someone might have generated some less-visible or less-apparent injury in a decomposed situation, decomposed remains being found and foul play cannot be safely excluded. That’s where the due diligence comes into the picture.”
So, it’s not solved?
“Oh, no, far from that. Proclaiming that it is solved, stamping it out, is not, not fair by any measure. Under any circumstance and it does not conform to the principal medical, legal, death investigation because we have to provide the answer, provide the answer about the cause, about the mechanism of death, and about the manner of death.”
And that’s not answered in this report?
“The report contains the assumption that the young man drowned and the circumstances are unclear and whenever there is the involvement of alcohol, or drugs, or any major happening I understand that this was tied into a major social, and public, sports happening at the time, you have to be focused and to pursue this to the point of providing the opportunity -- maybe, maybe you can’t get all the answers necessarily, you can’t get all the answers to the questions maybe put forward. But that does not mean that you have the opportunity to shut it down and not think about it anymore. This is an open case in my mind, and in everybody’s mind it should be an open case, until you can provide some opportunity to -- first of all, closure for the family members, and then to sort this out . . . because it’s an unnatural death with unanswered questions.”
Is there one glaring example that has you concerned?
“Well, there is no proof that this young man drowned. The fact that his body was found in the body of water several months after his disappearance does not mean that he drowned under the circumstances. And that’s the critical, unanswered question that triggers of all the ramifications and all the concerns and all of the reasons to pursue this investigation.”
Just because you’re found in a body of water, doesn’t mean you drowned in a body of water?
“Drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion. So, everything and anything is considered‚ and you cannot be sure how much of alteration of tissue due to decomposition can ensue in someone’s remains. You can’t rely on that and then say, ‘Oh, well, I didn’t notice any injuries so that must be drowning.’ Well, it’s not. And it’s not a satisfactory answer and it has to be followed up.”
If it was drowning, what things would we have seen?
“Well, looking at the rest of the findings in the body -- although there is decomposition, there is no significant finding to convince anyone that there was substantial inhalation of water into the lungs. In order to drown, you have to be asphyxiated by the effect of water blocking the airways, blocking the air sacs, filing the air sacs, and if someone is unconscious that can happen very fast. If someone is not unconscious and they are struggling they can have water in their stomach because swallowing, because of the fight to stay above the water, to maintain adequate breathing. So, there are all kinds of special circumstances in situation when the body ends in the water, but if the body ends in the water lifeless, then there is none of this and that should be the red flag for, ‘Hey, this might have been something else,’ and off the top of my head I cannot offer you possibilities but there are possibilities and those possibilities have to be checked.”
---> Find full coverage on this case here.