Cause of woman’s death remains undetermined

Authorities might never know how a 22-year-old woman found in a downtown Las Vegas trash can died last year. Medical examiners this week exhausted efforts in finding an answer.

Helena Haley's death certificate will read "undetermined" under cause of death, placing her in a category with less than 1/100th of a percent of the deaths handled by the Clark County coroner's office each year.

The North Carolina native and mother of three hadn't been in Las Vegas a month before a homeless man spotted her one September morning face-down in a trash can on the corner of Eighth Street and Carson Avenue.

There were no marks on her body, except for a wound to her head that police believe happened while she was being dragged inside the plastic can. Investigators thought she might have overdosed. It took the coroner's office five months to identify her.

Metropolitan Police Department homicide detectives investigated the case, but it was never officially classified as a homicide, Lt. Lew Roberts said.

"There was no apparent trauma to her to indicate foul play," Roberts said.

Of the nearly 14,000 people who die in Clark County each year, between 70 and 80 deaths -- from children who suffer sudden infant death syndrome to skeletons found in the desert -- cannot be explained, Coroner Mike Murphy said.

Yet even in cases with an unknown cause of death, people can still be charged and convicted in the deaths.

Medical examiners never determined how 68-year-old Christine Smith died in 1998, but prosecutors charged her daughter, Brookey Lee West, with murder after Smith's liquefied remains were found in a 56-gallon drum.

West was convicted based on circumstantial evidence that tied her to the crime, including a series of lies she told authorities. She appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, arguing that examiners never determined Smith was murdered. Justices rejected her appeal.

In the eyes of the coroner, there are only five ways someone can die: by homicide, which is defined as the taking of someone's life by another; suicide; accident; natural causes, or undetermined.

Undetermined cases include those with conflicting manners of death, such as when investigators can't tell whether a death was a suicide or accident, and where it's simply impossible to tell how someone died, such as in Smith's case, Murphy said.

Medical examiners ran physical and toxicological tests on Haley's body, but nothing turned up to say how she died. They returned her body in January but kept tissue samples, which they'll hold indefinitely.

"We want to apply all the science known to us today, but clearly there may be science in the future" that could aid in the investigation, he said.

Roberts said detectives have continued to probe Haley's death but have not come up with any suspects, if any exist.

Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.