The mother of a woman with epilepsy who died in 2016 hopes the high-profile murder of Diane Stewart may be the key to establishing the cause of her daughter’s death.
Emily Whelan, 25, was found unanswered in her room in Leeds on 7 November 2016 and was pronounced dead the next day at Leeds General Nursing.
Her parents were told that Whelan had had a seizure, but had never had any major problems with the illness she had managed since childhood. Whelan’s parents suspect she may have been murdered and believe that an individual known to her has questions to answer.
Stewart, whose cause of death was also initially attributed to epilepsy in 2010, was found to have been murdered by her husband, Ian Stewart, in a trial earlier this year. The re-examination of his death was ordered after Ian Stewart was convicted of murdering his new partner, child author Helen Bailey, in 2017.
Following Whelan’s death, a police investigation concluded that there was no involvement of third parties and closed the case, while an investigation concluded that he had died in “circumstances compatible with a nocturnal seizure that precipitated a cardiac arrest.”
Although West Yorkshire police say the conclusion is upheld and no formal investigation has been reopened, The Guardian may reveal that the force is approaching another police unit in connection with the murder of Diane Stewart. . There is no suggestion that Ian Stewart was involved in Whelan’s death.
A re-examination of Diane Stewart’s brain revealed that she showed signs that “breathing had been restricted” between 35 minutes and an hour before her death and finally helped secure a conviction against her husband.
Whelan’s mother, Caramella Brennan, approached West Yorkshire police with further questions after reading reports on the Stewart case. Brennan said slides of his daughter’s brain tissue had been preserved, meaning similar tests could be performed.
In March, she approached the forensic service and was soon contacted by West Yorkshire police, who confirmed that they were in contact with the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Crimes Investigation Unit investigating Stewart’s murder. .
It is understood that the pathologist who performed the original autopsy, Dr. Matthew Lyall, is considering re-examining Whelan’s brain tissue.
Whelan, a health and social work graduate with the ambition of working with young offenders, had a baby in college and completed her studies while raising the child and working part-time in a daycare center.
Investigations into his death have been severely hampered by the failures of Leeds teaching hospitals that the NHS relies on to preserve his body. A forensic autopsy was ordered about 10 months after Whelan’s death, but when the pathologist came to examine his body, it had broken down.
The pathologist “carefully considered” whether her death could have been caused “by injuries inflicted by another person.” He said his examination of the body was “severely hampered by decomposition changes”. He said that in the absence of an obvious traumatic injury, he considered the possibility of death by suffocation, i.e. strangulation or suffocation.
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He said that in the first examination, the pathologist had mentioned “petechiae in the eyes” – small red spots that may be a sign of strangulation – but that they were not visible when he made his own assessment, and added “the the changes of decomposition could have darkened the existing ones ”.
In a ruling last year, a judge ruled that Leeds NHS trust teaching hospitals had violated human rights law by failing to preserve Whelan’s body and awarded family damages.
Brennan told the Guardian: “Despite the impressive incompetence of the funeral home, the coroner’s office and certain police officers during the first look at the events surrounding Emily’s death, I hope the evidence is found this time.
“Not a day goes by that we don’t think about it and miss Emily.”
A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: Emily’s family highlighted the case to us.Whelan.
“At this time there is no change in our previous conclusion that Emily’s death was not suspicious without the involvement of third parties.”