Elliot Blair's wife Kimberly Williams was told about 'bullet hole' in his head by cop, confirms lawyer
PLACENTIA, CALIFORNIA: The wife of California lawyer Elliot Blair was informed by police on the scene that her husband had been shot in the head the night he died at a resort in Mexico, according to an attorney for the family. However, Mexican authorities have apparently contradicted the claim. The shocking information added to a string of contradictory comments made by Mexican officials and Blair's devastated family over the circumstances surrounding the Orange County public defender's death on January 14 at Las Rocas Resort & Spa.
While Mexican authorities claim that Blair's death was the result of an unintentional fall from a resort balcony, Blair's family and friends have argued that he was the victim of a "brutal crime." The family has made it apparent that they are looking into their loved one's death on their own, with the aid of private detectives. Blair fell to his death from the third floor, but according to family attorney Case Barnett, the family is unsure of what exactly transpired just before that.
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According to Barnett, Blair's wife, Kimberly Williams, was informed by police that Elliot had a "bullet hole" in his head," which has only contributed to the confusion about the case, according to New York Post. When Blair died, the couple was commemorating their first anniversary. The 33-year-body old's was ordered to be embalmed by the district attorney in Mexico, according to the family lawyer, making it difficult for the family to compile their own toxicological analysis. This assertion has also been refuted by Mexican authorities.
According to Barnett, after Williams was informed of the incident, a family member who lived nearby arrived at the site and provided translation services for her. “The cop at the scene — the lead investigating officer, he’s in plain clothes wearing a badge around his neck, tells Kim that there’s a bullet hole in Elliot’s head,” Barnett said. “And that kind of starts this whole thing with the violence of it all.”
When authorities arrived on the scene and from an autopsy that followed, "there was no sign of violence," a representative for the Baja California attorney general told the Los Angeles Times. He apparently also denied all proof of a gunshot wound. The family was told the cause of death was trauma to the head when the liaison to the coroner's office contacted them days later, according to Barnett, and that the death would be reported to police as a possible homicide.
The liaison claimed that the papers suggested head trauma when the family enquired about a gunshot wound, according to Barnett. “The liaison says if it was a gunshot to the head, it wouldn’t say head trauma, it would say gunshot wound to the head,” Barnett said. “So the family is confused.”
When the body is delivered to the family, the family intends to conduct their own autopsy, he said. Barnett stated that the family is disappointed that because he has been embalmed. This means they will be unable to conduct a toxicology test to refute reports that he was drunk when he died. According to Barnett, the mortuary informed the family that the move was carried out on the prosecutors' instructions. “The family’s obviously devastated because, given these strange circumstances, they wanted their own toxicology,” he said. “They now cannot get their own toxicology because the body’s been embalmed.”