Kristopher Gray
My
son, Kristopher Gray, 22, was found dead
Kris had left home on Thursday, August 31, to go to work at Riley
Industrial. He never returned. On Friday, Sept. 1, he did not show up for work
or pick up his payroll check. A Sirgo employee (oil and gas field person) told
investigators that he did not see Kris's body when he inspected the well site
on Friday. On Saturday, Sept. 2, at about
At
The keys to Kris's pick-up truck were in his pocket, yet the truck itself
was missing. It was later found, broken into, hot-wired, and abandoned on a
street in
According to the police report, witnesses told police that Kris had been at
the Turnaround Bar on the evening of Sept. 1, with a group of other people.
When the bar closed at about
Kris's footprints reportedly showed that he continued to run down the road
and then veered off into a field and headed for the oilrig. This makes no sense
unless he was being chased. Our suspicion that foul play was involved is
supported by the fact that blood was spattered on all sides of the pump jack,
not just in the spot where Kris's body was found.
The autopsy report describes multiple abrasions, blunt force trauma to the
head and neck, four broken ribs and a broken pelvis, a severed aorta, and a
4-inch gash on Kris's forehead. What it does not contain is the
information that Kris had a stab wound on his right side under his ribs. I noticed
that at the mortuary and asked the embalmer, Martin Harris, about it. Mr.
Harris told me it was a fresh stab wound that he'd had to patch so it wouldn't
leak.
The OMI finding was:
Cause of Death: Multiple injuries
How Injury Occurred: Fall from height
Manner of Death: Accident
The Tribal Investigators and the FBI closed Kris's case as an accident. Our
family cannot accept that. FBI Agent Thomas Kneir, in a letter written
A review by Dr. Harry Bonnell, a medical
expert with the Second Opinion Service, sponsored by the Parents of Murdered
Children, determined that Kris's injury pattern does not fit any of the
theorized scenarios and that the investigation should be reopened. Dr. Bonnell speculates that Kris was
seriously injured in a fight and, while trying to escape his pursuers, was run
down by a pick-up truck.
The attitude of the case investigators has been nothing but condescending to
our family. They seem to feel that the murder of a tribal member is not worth
investigating. Although Agent Kneir assured the U.S. Attorney that he was well
informed about the circumstances of Kris's death, statements in his letter
indicate otherwise. For example, Agent Kneir says:
"One issue remains unanswered concerning Kristopher Gray. This issue
centers around the discovery of Gray's body on
If Agent Kneir had been familiar with the case, he would have been aware
that Kris was found on
Kris's death was not properly and thoroughly investigated. My daughters and
I gave investigators names of people who knew or worked with my son, but police
never questioned them. And the witnesses they did interview were
obviously lying. The interviews in the case file make it sound like Kris was
staggering around, picking fights, and drunk out of his mind, but the autopsy
report states that Kris's blood alcohol level was only .0321. I asked an FBI
agent how much Kris would have had to drink to reach that level, and he said
maybe one and a half beers. Two people have come to me and told me that Kris
was trying to break up a fight between others and got killed in the process. I
had to plead with the congressman and senator from our state to persuade police
to give their witnesses lie detector tests. The police contend that they did
administer two polygraph tests, but they won't identify the subjects to whom
they were given, and since all the names in Kris's case file have been blacked
out, there's no way to know if it's true.
Life has been very difficult for me since Kris's death. I have been
tormented by this devastating ordeal. I would like to see justice served on the
people who murdered my son. I feel that, because my son was a Native American,
his case was never given the time of day. I find it hard to believe that the
medical examiner was in a position to determine for certain that Kris
"accidentally" fell from a height or stumbled into a pump jack, as
compared to being shoved by somebody who was chasing him. And what about that
unrecorded stab wound?
My son's death needs to be reopened and reinvestigated by people who are
dedicated to truth and justice rather than to a quick and easy case closure.
Marie Gray-Lope