INDICTMENT UNSEALED: Autopsy: Drugs in body
2006, REVIEW-JOURNAL
An autopsy showed that the personal assistant of Kelly Ryan and Craig Titus had morphine and heroin byproducts in her system at the time of her death. It also indicated that she had previously used methamphetamine.
Both the cause and manner of death for Melissa James, 28, was officially listed as undetermined, giving defense attorneys for Ryan and her husband, Titus, the opportunity to maintain what the pair once told police -- that James died of a drug overdose, they panicked and disposed of her body.
"The defense can make hay out of it," former Prosecutor Charles Kelly, now a local defense attorney, said of the autopsy results.
Titus and Ryan and a co-defendant, Anthony Gross, were in District Court on Friday to face charges stemming from James' death in December.
The indictment, unsealed in the courtroom of District Judge David Wall, charges Titus and Ryan with murder with use of a deadly weapon, first-degree kidnapping and third-degree arson.
The indictment charges Gross with accessory to murder and arson in connection with allegations he helped the fitness champions dispose of James' body.
Titus, 40, is a past place-winner of international Mr. Olympia competitions. Ryan, 33, is a past Ms. Fitness America and Ms. Olympia runner-up.
James was found dead Dec. 14 in the back of Ryan's torched Jaguar in the desert off state Route 160. Titus and Ryan first told police they didn't know how James ended up dead in the car.
Authorities said the couple then fled Las Vegas and were arrested Dec. 23 outside Boston, where they told police James died of a drug overdose in Ryan's car in their garage before they disposed of her body, burning it in the process.
In a third scenario regarding the death, authorities said, Titus later agreed with an FBI agent's premise that perhaps he was having rough sex with James and she died.
The autopsy report notes that "opiate intoxicants" were in James' system. The Review-Journal was unable to access documents detailing the exact levels of the metabolites of the drugs in her system.
However, other documents show there are a number of other clues garnered from the autopsy and crime scene that would seem to contradict the premise that she somehow died of a drug overdose.
Namely, a coroner's report details that a ligature was found around James' neck.
"Head was wrapped in an apparent blanket," the report said. "Beneath the burned blanket, there was apparent duct tape around her head and face, and a cloth strip and wires around her neck."
James' body was badly burned with an accelerant. Ryan was captured on a Wal-Mart surveillance video buying accelerant shortly before the body was found.
In his statement to police claiming James died of an accidental drug overdose, Titus told authorities he had, in fact, duct-taped James' face while her body was on the floor of his home.
"Put a blanket on the ground, grabbed another blanket and I taped up her head," Titus said. "I didn't want to see her face. I didn't want to see her face.
"I took the tie off one of my robes, and I put it on the back of her neck and pushed her knees up and tied her knees to her chest," Titus said. "Then we wrapped her up in a blanket and taped it up and put her in the trunk.
"Then I put her in the trunk and dropped her a couple times," Titus said. "Kelly was crying hysterically.
"She's my (expletive) friend man," Titus said. "So (expletived) up. Now it's worse."
When asked by police to explain the wires around James' neck, which Titus originally didn't mention, Titus said: "You know, honestly, this is the honest to God truth, when I, when I was tying her up in the cocoon-like position ... I used duct tape and I used the robe ties ... but there was something else I used that broke. I can't remember what it was. A phone cord maybe."
Titus also addressed James' drug use in his statement to police, which reads:
"Crystal methamphetamines ... Oxycontins, crystal methamphetamine, Nubane, cocaine, morphine, which I didn't know till the end."
Kelly said the autopsy results will be somewhat helpful to defense attorneys in the case, but prosecutors will try to argue that burning someone in the trunk of a car isn't consistent with a reaction to a drug overdose.
Kelly said perhaps the biggest challenge defense attorneys face is explaining the defendants' multiple versions of James' death.
"Which one do you want us to believe?" Kelly said.
