Questions remain in MSU student's death

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After a year of unanswered questions, the mother of an MSU student who was found dead on an Indiana golf course one year ago wants more investigation into her daughter’s death.

Nancy Cotter, whose then-20-year-old daughter Rylan Cotter was ruled to have committed suicide by jumping from an electrical tower on Jan. 7, 2008 in Chesterton, Ind., is seeking another look at how her daughter died. An Indiana coroner determined Cotter intentionally jumped from a tower 28 feet away from where her body was found, but Nancy Cotter is raising questions about the coroner’s findings and whether her daughter leapt from the tower.

Residents who live near the tower where Cotter was found have told her mother that Cotter would not have been able to climb the tower without aid and that other towers were more accessible for somebody to commit suicide.

Police have not established why Cotter, an international relations junior, was in Chesterton, Ind., about 20 miles from the Michigan-Indiana border near Lake Michigan, or why Cotter was at Brassie Golf Course, where her body was found in an area two and a half miles from the nearest major road.

“For her to go to Chesterton, somebody would have to guide her there,” Cotter said.

Cotter was seen in Chesterton twice on the day of her death — once on a surveillance camera buying a box cutter and allergy medication and later by a resident walking along a trail where Cotter’s car was parked — but was never seen with anybody. A small, bandaged would was found on her left wrist and a toxicology report found nonlethal doses of Diphenhydramine, commonly known as the allergy medication Benadryl, in her system.

While the wrist wound and reports from friends of changes in behavior might indicate suicide, Nancy Cotter and a former coroner in the county where Rylan Cotter was found said there is not enough evidence to call the death a suicide with absolute certainty.

“Unless you can prove the person took their life and you have no other manner of death you can prove, you have to call the death ‘indeterminable,’” said John Evans, a Porter County commissioner who was the county’s coroner for more than 20 years.

In addition to asking for further investigation into her daughter’s death, Cotter wants Porter County Coroner Victoria Deppe’s manner-of-death ruling changed from “suicide” to “indeterminable.” Deppe, who said in March that she had “painstakingly looked at all the evidence” and determined Cotter jumped, did not return calls seeking comment in recent days.

Chesterton Police are actively investigating any criminal leads regarding the case and are waiting on lab results related to the investigation, Cincoski said. He declined to specify the type of tests being performed or discuss specific aspects of the investigation, citing Indiana law prohibiting the public discussion of evidence in an open investigation.“Whenever there is anything that is of substance that comes in, we investigate it,” Cincoski said, adding the most recent lead in the case came last week. “The only thing closed is the cause and manner of death.”Cotter, who didn’t receive insurance compensation after her daughter’s death, said she is pursuing the case and the change of manner of death to clear her daughter’s name and prove she didn’t commit suicide. She is asking for assistance from volunteers who will look further into the case and has contacted the Indiana Attorney General.

“The last exchange we had was about her getting a passport to go to Africa,” Cotter said of her daughter, who was planning an internship with the Mandela Peace Center in South Africa and wanted to help in war-torn Darfur. “These are not things you do when you’re depressed or thinking about suicide.”

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