Suspected murder was natural
Published 12:13am Thursday, February 9, 2012NATCHEZ — The Adams County Sheriff’s Office closed a three-month-old murder investigation Wednesday. The reason, Sheriff Chuck Mayfield said, was because it wasn’t a murder.
The death of 71-year-old Elida P. Lopoo-Rosenson was treated as a possible murder due to suspicious circumstances at the scene of her death — a broken window, an open door, items from her purse scattered across the house. She was discovered when an ACSO deputy made a welfare check at Rosenson’s residence after a neighbor reported not seeing her for several days.
The state pathology lab’s initial report stated that the cause of death was possible asphyxiation by strangulation, but Mayfield said he received notification this week that the matter had been reviewed and the death was officially ruled as natural causes. The sheriff said Rosenson had been dead for multiple days and the body was in a state of decomposition when it was found, possibly contributing to the initial erroneous finding.
While waiting for the final report to come in, ACSO investigators continued to probe the circumstances surrounding Rosenson’s death.
“We have run down a lot of leads, talked to a lot of people,” Mayfield said. “It seemed like everything we came up with was a dead end.”
Through the interview process, however, Mayfield said the ACSO was able to clear the two persons of interest in the case and was able to establish that the suspicious broken window was broken before Rosenson’s death.
“We believe it was always possible that she had some kind of distress — we believe she was outside — and came in the house and in her house did not close the door.”
The contents of the purse could have been spilled as Rosenson looked for medicine, Mayfield said.
The sheriff said he commended his investigators and deputies for their work in the investigation.
“I know that the public sometimes gets upset when we don’t have (a suspect) in a couple of days, but this shows why we are so careful,” Mayfield said. “You can really ruin someone’s life by arresting for a crime like this that they didn’t commit.”
