Swimmer Jamie Cail's death was ruled a drug overdose, but her family says photos of her body shows she was beaten
- Authorities say the death of former US swim champion Jamie Cail was an accidental fentanyl overdose.
- Cail died on St. John earlier this year. But her family says post-mortem photos show she was beaten.
American former swimming champion Jamie Cail died earlier this year in the US Virgin Islands and officials have now ruled that the New Hampshire native's death was because of an accidental fentanyl-related overdose.
But Cail's family says the 42-year-old's February death was no accident and insists that post-mortem photos of the woman's body — which they shared with Insider — show that Cail had been beaten.
"We know that Jamie did not ingest fentanyl intentionally. There is definitely foul play," Jessica DeVries, who identified herself as Cail's cousin and a spokesperson for the family, told Insider in an interview on Tuesday.
Cail — a former US national team swimmer who won gold in the 800 free relay at the 1997 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships — was living on the Caribbean island of St. John at the time of her death earlier this year.
The US Virgin Islands Police Department, which had been investigating Cail's death, said in a Facebook post last week that it received a copy of Cail's autopsy report from the island's medical examiner's office on August 22.
Police said that the report stated Cail's cause of death to be "fentanyl intoxication with aspiration of gastric content" and that Cail's manner of death was ruled as "accidental."
The police department and the island's medical examiner's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Insider on Tuesday about Cail's family's claims.
Cail's face was 'smashed in,' her cousin says
DeVries slammed authorities' conclusion about Cail's death as an "atrocity" and said the photos taken of Cail's body by a family liaison in March after the woman's autopsy shows that "somebody put their hands on Jamie."
In photos provided to Insider showing Cail's body, her left eye appears to be heavily bruised and there is a mark on her nose (Insider is not publishing the photos due to their graphic nature).
"We have decided to release the photo because we need everybody to understand that Jamie was not a fentanyl user — that she had actually been beaten," DeVries told Insider, explaining, "Jamie's face was smashed in, the top of her skull and her nose."
DeVries added, "Her face is bashed in. Did fentanyl do that to her?"
Forensic pathologist and former New York City chief medical examiner Michael Baden told Insider that the images show "trauma" that occurred before the woman's death, but that it is not definitive "evidence of a beating or a cause of death."
The injuries could have stemmed from "a blow to the eye or a blow to the scalp" and "could have happened in a number of different ways," Baden said.
Cail's boyfriend found her on the floor of their home
Police have said that Cail's boyfriend, who has not been identified, found Cail on the floor of their home after he left a local bar to check on her just after midnight on February 21.
The boyfriend, along with help from a friend then took Cail to the Myrah Keating-Smith Clinic where CPR was performed on Cail, but she could not be saved, the police department has said.
DeVries told Insider that her family feels "completely failed" by the US Virgin Islands Police Department and that they have not gotten a police report or Cail's full autopsy report.
"We want transparency and we want justice," said DeVries.
Cail's family, DeVries said, "is completely devastated to have Jamie's name tarnished in this way."
"Jamie was not a fentanyl user or an opioid user of any kind. She did not do drugs," said DeVries. "She was a national, international swimmer who deserves the honor of that because she was amazing and dedicated her life to that."