After autopsy, what killed WSU student found dead in wooded area is still a mystery
Exactly what killed a 23-year-old visually impaired college student found dead beside railroad tracks in a wooded area near Haysville in June remains a mystery.
Forensic pathologists who examined the body of Savannah Schneider after she was discovered dead on June 13 couldn’t figure out for sure how she died, even after an autopsy, according to a report filed in Sedgwick County District Court earlier this month.
The coroner’s office officially lists her cause and manner of death as “undetermined,” a label given when a full examination of a body plus toxicology screens don’t provide enough clues for investigators to make more specific findings.
But in a portion of autopsy reports where pathologists sometimes opine about possibilities, they expressed concern that the Wichita State University business administration major might have possibly met a sinister fate:
“The circumstances surrounding Ms. Schneider’s death, including the location in which her body was found, are concerning for foul play,” the opinion section of her autopsy report says.
“Should additional information be obtained in the future, the cause and manner of death may be amended.”
The comment raises questions about how the Wichita Police Department might handle Schneider’s death investigation going forward, even after the agency announced that homicide had been ruled out as the cause.
Capt. Jason Stephens during a July 1 news conference said police had ruled out foul play in Schneider’s death because “she has no traumatic injury to her body whatsoever” and there was no indication that she had been otherwise assaulted or robbed.
At the time, police were waiting on the results of a toxicology screen, which ultimately found nothing unusual in Schneider’s system.
Wichita police spokesman Officer Charley Davidson said by phone this week that the department’s stance hasn’t changed.
Autopsy findings are just a piece of the information law enforcement uses to decide how to progress in a death investigation.
“Through an in-depth and lengthy investigation — speaking with family, numerous witnesses, examining evidence — it was determined ... the death was an unfortunate accident,” Davidson said. He would not elaborate.
Schneider, who was missing for about two weeks before her body was found, was last seen at her west Wichita home getting into a vehicle associated with the rideshare service Lyft on May 31. A friend reported her missing on June 4, two days after her cellphone last pinged near Haysville.
On June 9, police used cadaver dogs to search the area but came up empty handed.
Two hours into a June 13 search event organized by Schneider’s sorority sisters, her body was seen lying in a field alongside railroad tracks, between 79th and 87th Streets close to Seneca.
Little to no understanding about exactly where she was headed when she got into the Lyft and why, as well as the location of her body helped fuel speculation that Schneider might have fallen victim to foul play.
A friend in a prior interview with The Eagle said Schneider had paused her college education intermittently in the 15 months prior to her death to cope with the deaths of her father, mother and stepfather. Simone Shields told The Eagle that Schneider had experienced some depression following the losses but said she was in therapy, was Catholic and would not have killed herself.
Instead, she suspected that Schneider was either harmed or had lost her way after the Lyft ride and became “dehydrated and confused.”
Stephens, the police captain, said in the July 1 news conference said the Lyft driver had dropped Schneider off at an address on south Meridian near where her body was eventually found. Stephens said Schneider’s phone records led investigators to determine that immediately after she arrived at the address, she “walked or wandered around on that very large plot of property” for two hours, covering at least three miles of ground.
He pointed out that conditions that evening were dark and Schneider was sight impaired, having been born with vision problems that carried the possibility of full blindness in the future.
“She has no traumatic injury to her body whatsoever, which rules out homicide in this particular case,” Stephens added during the July news conference.
When Schneider’s body was finally found, she was wearing a red, white and blue T-shirt, a purple undershirt, blue jeans and other garments, according to her autopsy report. She had a number of abrasions and bruises the pathologists described as “blunt force injuries” on her torso, arms and legs, the document says — but no internal injuries and no skull fractures or other injuries to her head and neck.
The autopsy report notes some causes of death leave little or no evidence to examine at the time of autopsy, including asphyxiation, irregular heartbeat, heat exposure and toxins that aren’t tested for during toxicology screens.
Decomposition may also hide certain skin injuries and may leave pathologists unable to conduct some tests or lead to inconclusive results, Schneider’s autopsy report notes.
Contributing: Michael Stavola of The Wichita Eagle
This story was originally published September 23, 2020 at 11:22 AM.
