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Did cops or drugs kill Navy sailor? Coroner reopens case 9 years later

“We want to see the good in our police officials, all of us want that. But sometimes they cross the line.”

The Chester County Coroner's Office has reopened the case of a 20-year-old Navy sailor from Phoenixville to determine whether a violent encounter with police at a rock concert in Camden — or drugs — killed him.

Brett Katzenmoyer died five days after his 2007 arrest had left him with a concussion and broken nose. Conflicting accounts surround the incident. A security guard at a hospital where Katzenmoyer was taken said one police officer repeatedly punched Katzenmoyer, drawing blood. The officer said he used "open palm strikes," not fists.

Robert Satriale, then Chester County coroner, at first labeled the manner of death "Homicide."

But when he learned that Katzenmoyer had unprescribed morphine and sleeping pills in his system, Satriale, who left office in 2008, changed the manner to "Could not be determined."

Now, Coroner Gordon Eck will determine whether that ruling was correct, and his inquiry has the potential to reverse it.

"It would be my desire that this review would assist in bringing closure and assurance that justice was done," Eck said. "Having personally lost a child" — his 7-month-old son, Dustin, died in 1988 of sudden infant death syndrome — "I understand the pain that is felt."

Ginger Katzenmoyer, 60, has long fought to change the ruling back to homicide. She said former Coroner Steven Dickter, who succeeded Satriale, told her that only detectives could reopen the case. Dickter would not comment.

Eck, who is doing the review at Ginger Katzenmoyer's request, will examine autopsy and hospital reports, and possibly interview individuals in the case.

Ginger Katzenmoyer says she wants justice, not money. She sued Camden in federal court and received a $750,000 settlement in 2013 and a letter conveying "sadness and regret," but not responsibility. So she keeps fighting.

"We want to see the good in our police officials, all of us want that," she said in May. "But sometimes they cross the line. And you have to be able to step up and say, 'This is wrong.' "

Brett Katzenmoyer, one of three siblings, was a risk-taker. When he received a four-wheeler for Christmas, he built dirt mounds so it could fly. When a storm once unleashed downpours and lightning, he swayed on a giant backyard tree. He had a tattoo on his rib cage that read: "Only the Fearless Shall Know God."

His father, Richard, died of skin cancer when Brett was 14. Brett graduated from Phoenixville High School in 2005 and joined the Navy, following in his older brother's footsteps, and became a member of the Ceremonial Guard.

Brett Katzenmoyer told police he was in the Navy as they approached him at the concert, according to one officer's account.

A young woman had summoned police after she said Katzenmoyer swung his fist, knocked a beer from her hands, and hit her chest, leaving a small red mark. The woman said Katzenmoyer was angry because her group, to whom he introduced himself, asked him to leave.

Katzenmoyer was shirtless in Navy dog tags and camo shorts in the parking lot of the Tweeter Center, now the BB&T Pavilion. He and six friends had come to drink before an O.A.R. concert.

What followed is pieced together through interviews, police reports, and testimony in 2011 during the Katzenmoyers' federal suit from a hospital security guard, an internal affairs investigator, and former Camden City Officer John McArdle.

McArdle said Katzenmoyer refused to put his hands behind his back and swung them as McArdle and another officer took down and cuffed him during a "violent struggle."

Aimee Branca, 28, a friend of Katzenmoyer, said in an interview she saw police drag him handcuffed to the back of a van.

McArdle said Katzenmoyer threw himself against the van's walls "like a wild animal." The officers took him to Virtua Camden.

That's where Anthony Robertson, a hospital security guard, testified that he heard moaning outside.

Robertson said that Katzenmoyer was handcuffed and threatening to sue the officers, and that McArdle repeatedly punched him in the face to "shut him up."

McArdle said Katzenmoyer was spitting blood.

What happened next is in dispute.

Police said Katzenmoyer — with his hands cuffed in front of him — tried to grab McArdle's holstered gun as McArdle and a second officer carried him on a board.

Robertson testified that Katzenmoyer never reached for a gun and that the board simply tilted toward McArdle, who then "beat [Katzenmoyer] in the face, from the nose to the eye."

"Blood splashed everywhere," Robertson testified, saying he screamed "Enough!" to McArdle. Robertson could not be reached for comment.

McArdle and his partner that day, Ronald Lattanzio, have since retired, and attempts to reach them through their attorneys were unsuccessful.

McArdle testified that Lattanzio retired in 2009 because of "the violence of the young man Katzenmoyer," and that Lattanzio "couldn't handle being a cop anymore."

Lattanzio reported back pain from the incident and applied for an accidental-disability pension. The state denied it.

McArdle said neither he nor Lattanzio was disciplined for the incident after inquiries by the FBI and other agencies.

One internal affairs investigator from Camden's former city police force, which was replaced in 2013 by a county-run force, testified that he believed Robertson, the security guard, had exaggerated the situation to portray himself as a hero.

Katzenmoyer's injuries, Vincent McCalla testified, "did not reflect a person who had been savagely beaten."

Katzenmoyer was charged with simple assault and resisting arrest, among other offenses. He returned home after brief hospital stays in Camden, both at Virtua and then at Cooper University Hospital. His mother said the charges were later dropped.

On Aug. 20, 2007, two days after the arrest, he got a CAT scan at Pottstown Hospital for bloody fluid leaking from his ears, but it showed nothing amiss.

The following evening, at home, he told his mother, "I love you," and went to sleep. She found him unconscious in his bed the next day. He was taken to Phoenixville Hospital.

"Chasing his dreams — I could see Brett dying that way," his brother Kevin, 25, said. "I cannot imagine having to lose him the way we did, which was in a hospital bed."

His legs swollen. His eyes closed. He died that Thursday, Aug. 23.

A temporary employee at the coroner's office, early in the investigation, accidentally released a copy of the death certificate indicating "Homicide" to the Katzenmoyer family. The coroner, Satriale, said in an interview Friday it was not a final ruling.

He said that while the timing of Katzenmoyer's death — days after the arrest — suggested it was a homicide, the unprescribed drugs in Katzenmoyer's system indicated otherwise.

"This case was a terrible tragedy," Satriale said.

He ultimately concluded the morphine and sleeping pills were possibly taken the night before Katzenmoyer's mother found him, and may have caused his death, though he could not say for certain.

Ginger Katzenmoyer said she suspects that a friend gave her son sleeping pills, and that the morphine was from a drug he received at another hospital. She said he did not use heroin or other pain-relieving drugs.

His family has struggled to cope since his death. Brett Katzenmoyer's older brother, Richard, died from a mix of alcohol and drugs in 2009. He was 34.

Like his mother, Kevin Katzenmoyer still believes police were responsible for Brett's death. And he knows the new coroner's review offers a chance — perhaps the family's last — to show that.

"I already have trouble believing that we'll ever find justice," he said. "This is the last hope."

mboren@phillynews.com
856-779-3829
@borenmc