05-06-2011, 07:21 AM
Conway Daily Sun
CONWAY — It’s been a week since authorities held a press conference to announce they would not be releasing information from Krista Dittmeyer’s autopsy for at least another month.
Since that announcement there has been no more information coming out of investigators regarding the death of the 20-year-old Portland mom.
Dittmeyer's car was found April 23 in a Mount Cranmore parking lot with the engine running, emergency flashers on, and her infant daughter inside. Five days later, Dittmeyer's body was found in a Cranmore snow-making pond.
The investigation into her death is being treated as "suspicious," but the autopsy yielded no conclusions as to the "cause and manner" of death pending toxicology results.
Assistant attorney general Jane Young did say at a press conference last Wednesday that she saw no reason for citizens to feel "heightened" concern for their own safety.
But in the past week, since Dittmeyer's body was found and the autopsy performed, silence has become the official refrain of more than just the authorities.
Cranmore Mountain employees directed questions to management, who directed questions to the Attorney General’s office. Many individuals the Sun has contacted have said to talk to the Conway Police Department. The Conway Police Department is directing all questions to the Attorney General’s office, and the Attorney General’s office has not released any information other than identifying the body and confirming the autopsy has been performed.
But there are many unanswered questions. Why did police say they were only going to drain the retention pond at the base of Cranmore two days after Dittmeyer disappeared? Why didn’t they drain the snow-making pond, the one where her body was eventually found, at the same time? What eventually led investigators to the snow-making pond two days later? Was it a call from a passerby or a Cranmore employee? Or was it the police who first found her? Did anyone ever find the flip-flop two of Dittmeyer's friends, Ricky Acker and Corey Poland, reported seeing in the woods near Cranmore the night before her body was found? Why shouldn’t the public have a heightened level of concern after this incident?
Those and other questions have all received similar treatment: “I’m not going to go into those details.”
That was senior assistant attorney general Jane Young’s response to a question about whether it was police or a member of the public who found the body. That question came after she said she couldn’t explain why police drained one pond and not the other, which occurred before the Attorney General’s office was involved, she said.
But the Conway police have also been unwilling to comment, directing all questions back to Young’s office.
It is the policy of the Conway Police Department not to comment on ongoing investigations, Lt. Chris Perley has repeatedly said, because releasing information can damage the integrity of the investigation. Young has followed a similar policy.
That approach has left many people wondering where the investigation is a week on.
“There are a lot of rumors out there,” chief Ed Wagner said at the police commission meeting Tuesday. And probably less than one quarter of them are true, he said.
CONWAY — It’s been a week since authorities held a press conference to announce they would not be releasing information from Krista Dittmeyer’s autopsy for at least another month.
Since that announcement there has been no more information coming out of investigators regarding the death of the 20-year-old Portland mom.
Dittmeyer's car was found April 23 in a Mount Cranmore parking lot with the engine running, emergency flashers on, and her infant daughter inside. Five days later, Dittmeyer's body was found in a Cranmore snow-making pond.
The investigation into her death is being treated as "suspicious," but the autopsy yielded no conclusions as to the "cause and manner" of death pending toxicology results.
Assistant attorney general Jane Young did say at a press conference last Wednesday that she saw no reason for citizens to feel "heightened" concern for their own safety.
But in the past week, since Dittmeyer's body was found and the autopsy performed, silence has become the official refrain of more than just the authorities.
Cranmore Mountain employees directed questions to management, who directed questions to the Attorney General’s office. Many individuals the Sun has contacted have said to talk to the Conway Police Department. The Conway Police Department is directing all questions to the Attorney General’s office, and the Attorney General’s office has not released any information other than identifying the body and confirming the autopsy has been performed.
But there are many unanswered questions. Why did police say they were only going to drain the retention pond at the base of Cranmore two days after Dittmeyer disappeared? Why didn’t they drain the snow-making pond, the one where her body was eventually found, at the same time? What eventually led investigators to the snow-making pond two days later? Was it a call from a passerby or a Cranmore employee? Or was it the police who first found her? Did anyone ever find the flip-flop two of Dittmeyer's friends, Ricky Acker and Corey Poland, reported seeing in the woods near Cranmore the night before her body was found? Why shouldn’t the public have a heightened level of concern after this incident?
Those and other questions have all received similar treatment: “I’m not going to go into those details.”
That was senior assistant attorney general Jane Young’s response to a question about whether it was police or a member of the public who found the body. That question came after she said she couldn’t explain why police drained one pond and not the other, which occurred before the Attorney General’s office was involved, she said.
But the Conway police have also been unwilling to comment, directing all questions back to Young’s office.
It is the policy of the Conway Police Department not to comment on ongoing investigations, Lt. Chris Perley has repeatedly said, because releasing information can damage the integrity of the investigation. Young has followed a similar policy.
That approach has left many people wondering where the investigation is a week on.
“There are a lot of rumors out there,” chief Ed Wagner said at the police commission meeting Tuesday. And probably less than one quarter of them are true, he said.