Page 84 of Dead Man's Hollow
Dead Man’s Hollow—The Disappearance of Heather Ryan”
Episode 4, Part 2: What Really Happened in Dead Man’s Hollow? Experts Explain
Chloe says Andre collapsed and died after a single punch from another young man. This may seem impossible, but as I recently learned, it’s not only possible, it’s probable. We’ll hear from a renowned forensic pathologist later in this episode, but first, let’s hear again from Dr. Sofia Marchand.
MAISY: Dr. Marchand, you told me you believe Chloe’s amnesia in 2010 was triggered by the stress of seeing her baby daughter fall face down from her infant swing.
DR. MARCHAND: That’s correct.
MAISY: If she had previously witnessed a person falling face down, and that individual died, would that make her reaction even more likely?
DR. MARCHAND: Certainly.
MAISY: This did happen. In 1994, Chloe saw a young man die under these circumstances just moments before she disappeared. She had no memory of that event until quite recently. After that incident, she says she did not know her name or her personal history. Her first memory is arriving in Montreal and finding a police station. Can you offer an opinion as to what may have happened?
DR. MARCHAND: This would be a classic instance of what I described early. An adolescent girl who underwent such a severe trauma as watching a young man die and being unable to help him could experience a break with her identity. The similarity to his death and the position of her own baby daughter’s fall sixteen years later could trigger a second episode. Even though Chloe in 2010 would have no memory of the incident she witnessed in 1994, her nervous system would.
MAISY: So, in your opinion, did Heather Ryan know who she was at any point between May 28, 1994 and last week, when she returned to the woods?
DR. MARCHAND: She did not. And it’s not particularly surprising that returning to the spot where she suffered her trauma brought back her memory. It doesn’t always happen that way. But it has happened in many cases. Other times, a person regains memory the way she did in the 2010 incident—through a pleasant association—in her case, being at the beloved winter festival and seeing her baby. And in some cases, a person never regains their memories, not even after being reunited with their friends and family. All things considered, I’d say that Chloe is extremely fortunate.
We know that Andre died in the woods, that Heather experienced dissociative amnesia, and that Rich buried Andre’s body because he believed Heather killed him and he wanted to insulate her from the consequences of that action. But howdidAndre die?
To answer that question, I turned to one of North America’s most prominent forensic pathology consultants, Dr. Bodhi King. Dr. King has worked on some of the most puzzling deaths in modern history and has solved unsolvable puzzles. He also happens to be a close friend. He insisted I call him by his first name during this interview.
MAISY: Bodhi, you read the transcript of Chloe’s interview. Did it strike you as believable that a healthy sixteen-year-old boy could die as the result of being punched in the chest?
BODHI: Absolutely, particularly when Chloe specified that Andre was struck in his upper left chest.
MAISY: But how? I’ve been hit in the chest. I’m sure you have. We’re both still here.
BODHI: Andre Newport died because of a quirk of timing. The cause of death was almost certainlycommotio cordis, which is a Latin phrase that means ‘agitation of the heart.’ It is extremely rare and usually occurs in the context of sports when an athlete is struck in the chest by a baseball or hockey puck. Most recently, it occurred as the result of an impact during a routine tackle in an NFL game, although in that instance the player survived.
MAISY: Can you explain the mechanics?
BODHI: What happens is a blow, be it a fist or an object, hits a person’s precordium, which is the area of the left chest directly above the heart, with enough force and speed to increase the pressure in the left ventricle of the heart. This increase in pressure disrupts the heart’s rhythm. If these two rare events both happen and the disruption occurs at the precise wrong moment of the heartbeat cycle, it interferes with the electrical activity, causing a premature beat. This results in ventricular fibrillation and, ultimately, cardiac arrest.
MAISY: And death?
BODHI: Yes. The individual will usually collapse within seconds and, without intervention, death will occur in under three minutes. Chloe’s instinct to perform chest compressions was the right one, but survival rates are quite low unless there is immediate access to a defibrillator.
MAISY: But this can happen to anyone? Andre didn’t need to have an underlying heart condition, and the punch didn’t have to physically damage his heart itself?
BODHI: That’s right. He was the victim of genuinely bad luck. He was punched in the exact spot with enough force and at the precise time within a forty-millisecond window to interrupt the electrical activity and cause ventricular fibrillation. This is an extraordinary confluence of factors, which is whycommotio cordisis so rare.
MAISY: How rare?
BODHI: I’ve seen studies estimating that there are between ten and twenty cases a year in this country. The majority involve athletes playing the sports I mentioned earlier. Andre Newport was tragically unlucky that night in the woods.
In the end, a teenage boy’s life was cut short by the rare timing of a punch. And a teenage girl experienced a rare type of amnesia as result of witnessing this tragedy. But both tragedies were compounded by Rich Marino’s decision to cover up Andre’s death and convince others to lie about who was in the woods that night and when they last saw Heather.
AMY: If Rich had simply told the truth about what happened that night, the Newport family would have been spared all these years of not knowing. And if he’d simply stayed with Heather until the police arrived, maybe she wouldn’t have wandered off. She might not even have experienced amnesia. But if she had, her family and friends could have supported her through it instead of losing her for three decades. (Amy pauses.) But, ultimately, Heather’s story has a happy ending. She has a loving marriage, a delightful daughter, and a beautiful life as Chloe Tremblay. And thanks to your investigation, she’s back in our lives. My heart aches for Tia Newport, though.
Andre’s aunt is getting long overdue closure. Rich Marino is currently in jail awaiting a hearing on charges of abduction and assault and battery and refuses to cooperate with the authorities, but the other boys who were in the woods that night are helping police locate Andre’s grave. In addition, Jenna Novak of the Lewis Foundation for Victims of Violent Crime has partnered with Tia on an initiative to expose and reduce bias in the handling of missing person cases.
JENNA: This thirty-year-old case highlights an unfortunate reality that still exists today. Some cases receive short shrift by the media and law enforcement even though each case represents someone’s child. A child who is loved and missed. All families deserve a wholehearted search for their missing children, not just a select few.
The Farley Files also plans to partner with Tia Newport and the Lewis Foundation on this important initiative. Heather Ryan’s and Andre Newport’s stories have come to an end, but there are countless other missing persons whose stories remain to be told.
