GROSSE POINTE FARMS, Mich. – Eight years after Joann Matouk Romain disappeared from Grosse Pointe Farms, her family maintains she was murdered while police say her death was suicide.
A federal judge found disputed facts that are very disturbing but no evidence that a potential killer would have known that police would cover for him or her.
“I think the most interesting and disturbing part of this is the timeline that never added up,” Michelle Romain said.
Michelle Romain has spent the last eight years fighting to prove that her mother was killed. Her family says Matouk Romain was not suicidal, but she was afraid after a confrontation with a relative who works in law enforcement and who told several people that, if something happened to her, he would be responsible.
There are key points that haunt her family. A pathologist said Matouk Romain was a dry drowning.
“She didn’t really drown. There was no water in her lungs,” her daughter said.
The family also says crime scene photos don’t show any tracks from their 5-foot-tall mother in extremely high heels. Also, Michelle Romain believes her mother wouldn’t have been physically capable of handling a steep, icy embankment in those shoes and in her physical condition.
“There’s an awful lot of evidence that refutes their basic thesis that she walked into Lake St. Clair,” attorney Mark Bendure said.
Bendure is handling an appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is the last legal option available to Matouk Romain’s family.