Time for answers in Sowers case

The State’s Attorney’s office says it doesn’t want to talk about it any more because it’s a personal matter.

Sorry, folks, but it’s not that simple.

By publicly questioning the veracity of reports surrounding the beating of Zach Sowers last June that led to his death in March, city state’s attorney spokesperson Margaret Burns ignited a firestorm of controversy that can only be quelled by full disclosure.

In last month’s issue of Exhibit A, Burns told our reporter, Melody Simmons, that neurologists had said to prosecutors that overall, Zach Sowers’ injuries were inconsistent with those of a beating victim.

“The truth of the matter is, Zach’s injury was on one side of his face, and he looked like a sleeping baby when he arrived” at the hospital, Burns told Simmons.

“The injuries were not consistent with his horrible pummeling—it appeared that when he fell down, he had collapsed after being hit. We know he was kicked, he fell and hit his head, he fell between two cars. He probably injured himself in the fall or he had a pre-existing condition. There was no evidence of the vicious beating, no evidence of stomping,” Burns said.

Burns also questioned the refusal of Anna Sowers, Zach’s widow, to order an autopsy.

“We had not wanted to go against this poor woman. Everything she says to you is not 100 percent accurate. He is gone and the opportunity to have questions answered was ruined by not having an autopsy,” Burns said.

Public reaction has been harsh and almost uniformly critical of Burns and her boss, State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy. Burns has apologized to Anna Sowers by phone and by e-mail. But as this issue went to press, Burns and Jessamy had declined requests for public interviews on the matter.

In her letter, which became public and can be viewed on our Web site, Burns said her comments were “vastly misrepresented” by Simmons.

We don’t buy that. Melody Simmons is a veteran journalist, a longtime reporter at The Sun and now a freelance contributor to Exhibit A, The New York Times and WYPR. We reviewed the story carefully with Melody before we published it. She stands by her reporting and we stand by her.

“She [Burns] was not misquoted and she was not misrepresented. Everything I reported was what she said and just the way she said it,” Simmons says.

After her husband’s attackers were sentenced in December following a plea agreement, Sowers said she was “totally disgusted” with what she considered light sentences. Prosecutors called the evidence in the case slim — “a partial fingerprint [from the main attacker] and no eyewitnesses at the scene.”

Now Anna Sowers wants to know what the hell is going on.

She says doctors who treated her husband told her “his injuries were a direct result of a beating.” They don’t understand Burns’ speculation that he “fell” and banged his head and might’ve had a pre-existing condition that caused his death.

“Everything she [Burns] said was obscenely inaccurate,” Sowers says. “If I’m not speaking 100 percent accurately, I’d like to know what’s not accurate,” she added.

So would we all. The time for answers is now.