Adriana Younge’s Case: Second Autopsy Supports First Findings, Yet Drowning Remains a Mystery”
A second autopsy conducted on the body of 11-year-old Adriana Younge has reaffirmed the initial postmortem findings that there was no evidence of trauma, with Dr. Carol Terry, Chief Medical Examiner of Gwinnett County, Georgia, describing the original autopsy as “competently and thoroughly” conducted.
The body was embalmed and flown to Georgia, USA, by Younge’s relatives in a bid to obtain a fourth opinion and an additional autopsy following the child’s tragic death last month.
In an interview with journalist Travis Chase shortly after the examination on Thursday, Dr. Terry explained that her examination served largely as a “quality control” measure, acknowledging that the best opportunity to determine the cause of death was during the first autopsy — when decomposition was minimal and before embalming had occurred.
While she acknowledged that certain artefacts introduced during the initial postmortem limited the forensic value of her own assessment, Dr. Terry emphasised that the first autopsy was done “correctly, competently, and thoroughly,” and explicitly stated that “no trauma was overlooked” in that examination.
Dr. Terry also agreed with the initial findings: there was no evidence of trauma and did not find no signs of struggle. However, she stopped short of confirming drowning as the definitive cause of death, noting instead that she would be “reluctant to rule drowning” due to the limitations of a second autopsy and the absence of supporting toxicology results provided to her directly.
“Drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion,” she explained, stressing that such a conclusion requires the elimination of all other possible causes of death. Nonetheless, she did call for a thorough investigation, remarking that the surrounding circumstances of Adriana’s disappearance and death were “suspicious.” That investigation, however, is already underway and has so far found no evidence of criminal involvement.
Retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigator, Mr. Leonard McCoshan, who was earlier engaged in the inquiry, also reported that there is “no evidence of foul play by persons named or unnamed during the investigation.”
