JACKSON, Miss. - A medical examiner's autopsy reports that a Tennessee man died of accidental "complications of LSD toxicity" in police custody earlier this year in Mississippi.
The Mississippi medical examiner's autopsy report for 30-year-old Troy Goode of Memphis was posted online Tuesday by WMC-TV. Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain confirmed its authenticity to The Associated Press.
The autopsy was conducted July 20, two days after Goode died in Southaven police custody at a hospital in that Memphis suburb. The report contradicts independent autopsy results released last month by attorneys for Goode's family, which found Goode died from being hog-tied for an extended period.
Southaven police say they arrested Goode after he ran from his vehicle while he and his wife were on their way to a Widespread Panic concert. One of family's attorneys, Tim Edwards, said last month that Goode took a small amount of LSD before the arrest. Edwards said Goode was bitten by a police dog and was lifted by his shackles and put onto a stretcher face-down to be taken to the hospital.
Mississippi's deputy chief medical examiner, Dr. Erin A. Barnhart, wrote in her autopsy report that "extensive resuscitation efforts" were made on Goode at the hospital but were unsuccessful.
"At autopsy, there were superficial abrasions and contusions," including puncture wounds in Goode's left lower arm that were consistent with a dog bite, she wrote.
"Toxicology revealed LSD and marijuana in post-mortem blood samples," Barnhart wrote. "Based upon the autopsy findings and current investigational information, this 30-year-old male died as a result of complications of LSD toxicity. The manner of death is accident."
Another Goode family attorney, Kevin McCormack, told WHBQ-TV Tuesday he was surprised about the medical examiner's findings.
"Frankly the findings in that autopsy report, all the findings are consistent with someone who died during asphyxiation from being hog-tied," McCormack said. "But then, the conclusion ended up being something that appears to have no scientific basis."