A mother's killing rocked Louisiana in 2003. Now her death is ruled 'undetermined.' (2024)

The death of Audra Bland from a head injury in 2003 rocked the northshore with suspicions of foul play.

Bland, 35, of Hammond, was a married mother of two when she died at a shoreline mansion in Lewisburg. She was there with a man she’d been dating, William Lee.

The coroner deemed it a homicide. Prosecutors blamed a jealous rage. And in 2007, a St. Tammany Parish jury agreed, convicting Lee of second-degree murder. Lee, who had claimed that Bland fell in the driveway after a night out drinking in Biloxi, Mississippi, and died hours later in bed, is now serving life in prison.

But recently, the embattled St. Tammany Parish coroner, Dr. Christopher Tape, reached a different conclusionafter taking a fresh look at Bland’s brain. In June, Tape ordered a change to the official manner of her death, from “homicide” to “undetermined.”

Tape also directed that the cause of death be reclassified from blunt-force trauma to “traumatic brain injury due to fall due to unknown” and added multiple sclerosis as a contributor.

“A traumatic brain injury from a fall is the likely immediate cause of death,” Tape wrote."The reason(s) for the fall would be the underlying cause of death if it could be known for certain."

The state confirmed the changes to Bland’s death certificate in a June 11 letter.

Why the change?

Tape wasn’t the first forensic pathologist to cast doubt over the original autopsy for Bland, but he is the first coroner to make it official. While his decision casts shade on the notion that Bland was the victim of a crime at all, it’s far from clear at this stage that it will help Lee win his freedom.

St. Tammany Parish District Attorney Collin Sims did not respond to questions about the recent changes in Bland’s death certificate or the significance.

Tape said he was guided by reports from a 2019 review by Dr. Jonathan Arden, a defense expert who studied Bland's brain and found evidence of a fall to the back of her head.

Arden also found signs of multiple sclerosis, visible to the naked eye, that never came up at Lee’s trial. His report criticized the work of the original pathologist, Dr. Michael DeFatta, saying that DeFatta had failed to detect a major brain disease in the autopsy.

Tape, who said he conducted his own exam, has faced political backlash and a recall campaign since taking office this year over a decades-old arrest in New Mexico on charges of child sexual assault. In a statement, Tape cast the changes to Bland’s death certificate as evidence that he would do the right thing without concern for the consequences.

“I do not use 'undetermined' as a (manner of death) often or lightly, but it is one of the most fair and accurate conclusions that I can make,” Tape said in a statement. “I would like to think this is an example of doing something that may not be politically popular, but is the right thing to do regardless, and that I am the person who can make these tough decisions."

Effect on the case

Unlike many elected coroners in the state, Tape is a forensic pathologist by trade. His decision is now central to a legal petition Lee’s attorneys filed Wednesday, arguing that it should count as fresh evidence of Lee's innocence.

It was among a slew of petitions that attorneys for long-serving Louisiana inmates filed this week, in advance of a change in the law on Aug. 1 that clamps down on when prosecutors can agree to reduce a conviction or sentence from the distant past.

In Louisiana, the pendulum has swung swiftly over the past few years away from allowing prosecutors and judges that much discretion. And Lee’s case was among those that helped shift the tides.

In 2022, then-District Attorney Warren Montgomery agreed to a deal with Lee, based on Arden's review and doubts it raised about the fairness of Lee's trial. Under the deal, which 22nd Judicial District Judge John Keller approved, Lee pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a 35-year sentence.

That deal came under a law the Legislature passed in 2021 without opposition. Supported by prosecutors, it empowered them to reach similar deals for any reason, so long as a judge approved.

The Attorney General's Office challenged the law in Lee's case. Last September, a slim majority of the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed, finding it unconstitutional because it usurped the governor’s exclusive pardon powers. This year, state lawmakers went further to restrict when prosecutors can waive legal time limits and other barriers to "fix" past injustices.

In the meantime, Montgomery, the district attorney who agreed to the deal with Lee, died.

Fairness questions raised

Sims, his successor, did not respond to questions about Lee’s case, the change to Bland’s death certificate, or his confidence in Tape’s work as a coroner.

Nick Trenticosta, Lee's attorney, argued that it's never been clearer that his client didn't receive a fair trial.

"The sole question before the jury centered on whether Ms. Bland fell on her own or whether Mr. Lee caused her to fall," Trenticosta wrote.

"Given the fact that Ms. Bland was intoxicated and exhausted from a night of partying, had the defense known that Ms. Bland also suffered from chronic multiple sclerosis, a likely contributor to her fall, the defense would have been able to present a compelling case that Mr. Lee was innocent of murder."

A message to DeFatta was not returned. Peter Galvan, the St. Tammany Parish coroner at the time of Bland's death, who was later convicted of stealing from the office, declined to comment.