Del. report: Wheeler died from blunt-force trauma

The former Pentagon adviser whose body turned up last month in a Wilmington landfill was fatally assaulted, authorities said Friday.

John P. Wheeler 3d died from "blunt-force trauma after being assaulted," Delaware's chief medical examiner said. The ruling answered one question about Wheeler's Dec. 31 death, but left many others unanswered.

The one-paragraph statement offered no new details about Wheeler's unexplained behavior in his last days - when he was seen wandering around Wilmington disoriented - or clues to who killed him and dumped his body in a Newark, Del., trash bin.

Carl Kanefsky, a spokesman for the medical examiner, said the office released the ruling after getting toxicology results, the last piece of evidence it needed for a determination.

Kanefsky refused to elaborate on or release those results, but acknowledged they were a factor in determining the cause of death - effectively ruling out any suggestions Wheeler might have been poisoned or overmedicated, or might have passed out on his own.

Lt. Mark Farrall, a Newark police spokesman, said the investigation was continuing.

"The only thing I can say is to reiterate what I've said before: We're looking for information on how Mr. Wheeler got to Newark," Farrall said.

A 66-year-old New Castle, Del., resident, Wheeler had been scheduled to take a train Dec. 28 to Wilmington from his consulting job at Mitre Corp., a defense contractor outside Washington.

The next night, an employee at a Wilmington parking garage reported seeing him coatless, confused, and holding one shoe. The next day, he was captured by a surveillance camera in a downtown building, again looking disoriented.

That was the last time he was seen alive.

His body tumbled out of a truck as it delivered trash to the Cherry Island landfill in Wilmington just before 10 a.m. Dec. 31. Farrall said investigators have determined that the truck made 10 pickups that morning in Newark before going to the landfill.

Wheeler's tragic end contrasted with a lifetime of achievement: a West Point graduate and veteran who worked as secretary at the Securities and Exchange Commission, aide to Pentagon leaders, and executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

One unresolved mystery concerns the four-year dispute Wheeler had with a neighbor who was building a house across from his. Wheeler felt the project was out of scale for the historic neighborhood.

A law enforcement source has said police linked Wheeler to an arson attempt at that house days before he disappeared. But there has been no evidence disclosed that it played a role in his death.