FRANKLINTON, La. — Nearly 13 years after the mysterious shooting death of 14-year-old Brett Wittner, his still-agonizing parents hoped for closure from a new autopsy and anthropological study of his exhumed remains.
But instead of the answers they expected, they – and Washington Parish investigators – were left with more uncertainty.
Our WWL Louisiana investigation last spring prompted parish officials to reopen the investigation, exhume Brett's remains in August and order the new forensic studies, from a pathologist in Texas and from anthropologists at the LSU FACES Laboratory.
At a meeting earlier this month, Washington Parish Coroner Dr. Roger Casama told Brett’s parents, Donna and David Wittner, he was ready to rule the shooting a self-inflicted accident. But after being peppered with questions that the new studies didn’t answer, he reverted to the original manner of death: “undetermined.”
“Forensic medicine, it's supposedly an exact science; (but) there's still a lot of things that cannot be answered,” Casama said.
“Only that one can answer it,” the coroner added, pointing skyward.
Asked what she needed for closure, Donna Wittner said: "Something besides 'undetermined.’ Either way, just leaving it open is not closure."
Her son was shot in the head the morning of Feb. 25, 2012, at the end of a sleepover with seven other teens and preteens in rural Washington Parish. Donna immediately questioned investigators, doubting their conclusion that Brett could have used a .22 caliber long-barrel rifle just a few inches shorter than his arm to shoot himself at a slightly forward angle behind his right ear.
In addition to the unlikely angle with such a long gun, two young witnesses gave sheriff’s deputies conflicting statements about what happened in the moments leading up to the shooting. Police also found two shell casings at the scene but only accounted for one bullet. Then there was the fact that the 911 call didn’t come in until 36 minutes after witnesses told police Brett was shot.
Further eroding Donna Wittner’s trust was the autopsy performed by Dr. Christopher Tape, who was then a private pathologist and now is the St. Tammany Parish coroner. Tape concluded that Brett's death was likely self-inflicted and probably accidental. But his findings at the autopsy three days after Brett’s death were inconsistent with what could be seen in hospital imaging of Brett’s skull and brain just three hours after the shooting.
Tape said he recovered a deformed bullet from under Brett’s scalp, embedded in the exit wound on the left side of Brett’s skull. But the X-rays and CT scans from the hospital showed that large bullet fragment in the far back and higher up on Brett’s head, about 4 or 5 inches away from where Tape said it was lodged.
Tape also collected a single deformed bullet that, based on its weight, had lost less than 10% of its mass. He didn’t recover any of the bullet fragments visible across the trajectory of the deadly shot as evidence.
All of it left Donna Wittner with legitimate concerns. She spent years protesting in front of the district courthouse in St. Tammany Parish and at the Washington Parish sheriff’s and coroner’s offices, to no avail.
Then, in April 2024, WWL Louisiana gathered the complete case file and Brett’s medical records and sent the autopsy photos, CT scans and X-rays to experts around the world in radiology, gunshot wounds and ballistics.
Bo Janzon, a professor in Sweden and founder of the International Ballistics Society, analyzed the available data and calculated that the bullet fragments visible in Brett’s brain would have “far exceeded” what was missing from the recovered bullet and could have even added up to the mass of a whole other bullet.
Other experts agreed that Brett was likely shot not once, but twice. They including retired neuroradiologist Dr. Jon Spar in New Mexico; retired LSU neurosurgeon and noted brain wound researcher Dr. Michael Carey; and gunshot wound researcher Dr. Pan Stefanopoulos of the Greek Army.
Stefanopoulos said he believed the recovered bullet in the back of Brett’s head likely knocked him unconscious and a second shot that probably disintegrated through his brain was the one that killed him.
Those theories caught the eye of Washington Parish Sheriff Jason Smith. He took office July 1, immediately reopened the Wittner case and pushed for a second, independent autopsy. Brett’s remains were exhumed in August and driven directly to Forensic Medical Management Services in Beaumont, Texas.
But that pathologist who performed the secondary autopsy, Dr. William McClain, reported that he found no evidence of additional injuries other than the entry and exit wounds already noted by Dr. Tape. He didn’t find any other bullet fragments remaining, either.
Casama explained that those fragments could have been lost or washed away during transport or examination of the body.
McClain agreed with Tape’s original conclusion that Brett could have killed himself, either intentionally or accidentally. Plus, he almost completely ruled out murder.
“It is exceedingly rare for one individual to be able to inflict a contact, or even a loose contact, gunshot wound on another person, so homicide is all but eliminated as a possibility,” McClain’s report states. “The entrance wound is on the right side of the head and only slightly posterior to the right ear, in a location in which the decedent could easily have managed to shoot himself. The investigative information provided to me fails to indicate that this was a homicidal act.”
Spar, the retired neuroradiologist, said he didn’t understand McClain’s general assessment of contact gunshot wounds. From his decades in emergency medicine, Spar said it isn’t uncommon to see one person shoot another in the head at very close range, “execution style.”
WWL Louisiana asked McClain for clarification Tuesday and did not hear back.
Forensic anthropologists at the LSU FACES Laboratory received Brett’s remains after McClain’s autopsy and did a thorough review of his skull and skeleton. The report included photographs of the cleaned skull, showing entry and exit holes but no other divots or anomalies that could have been caused at or before Brett’s death.
Still, the experts consulted by WWL Louisiana raised concerns about the new results. They questioned how a bullet could have migrated under Brett's scalp from the exit hole in the front half of the left side of his skull to the far back of his head, where it was seen in scans, then back to the front of his head where Tape reported finding it three days later.
“I can't believe it would migrate back like that underneath the scalp,” Spar said. “The scalp is tightly adherent to the skull and for something just to do it under gravity because he happens to be laying on his back just doesn't sit with what I know.”
WWL Louisiana also shared the case file and the new forensic reports with Barret Kendrick, a firearms and use of force consultant in Covington, La.
“After reviewing all the material, I thought it was going to be a single gunshot wound as a result of mishandling the firearm,” he said. “It is possible that after spinning the gun as some of the witnesses described, he could have unintentionally discharged the firearm and shot himself.”
Kendrick said that kind of lever-action rifle has “a very light touch,” and the trigger can be pressed with only 2.5-3 pounds of force. He said the witness statements suggest Brett was handling the gun dangerously and it could have easily fired accidentally while he was spinning it around. Still, he said he understood why Donna Wittner isn’t willing to accept “undetermined” as a final answer.
“I’m a parent; if I was in the same position, I would be pounding on the table too, trying to get a definitive answer,” he said. “I just don’t know if it’s possible in this situation. My heart goes out to her, her family and everybody who has had to deal with the trauma over the years.”
Stefanopoulos also said he feels for Donna Wittner’s plight.
“I'm afraid that the current evidence is not sufficient,” he said. “I’m sorry to say that.”
Sheriff Smith said he had hoped for something more definitive, too. But he said he can’t commit resources to investigating the case as a potential homicide based on the latest forensic reports.
"We just didn't get the result that we wanted in terms of a definitive conclusion," Smith said. "I'm not saying that we can't get there, but we're just not there as of today."
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