One month after the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation regarding the death of Toledo resident Patricia Griggs, the case is still open.
The Lewis County Coroner confirmed on Monday that the investigation first opened on Oct. 22.
According to the coroner’s office, the cause of death for the 51-year-old woman was a “perforating gunshot wound to the chest and a perforating gunshot wound to the neck.”
“Perforating” wounds as opposed to “penetrating,” Coroner Warren McLeod explained, are “though-and-through” with corresponding exit wounds.
The manner of her death is “undetermined.” The location of Griggs’s death is not being released at this time, the coroner said.
Including undetermined deaths, there are five final “manner” classifications; others are natural, accident, suicide or homicide. Deaths without a final ruling are classified as “pending.”
“(Undetermined) is the final ruling, but it can be changed if new evidence comes to light. It means, at this point, we can’t determine any of the other manners,” McLeod said.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office, in a Nov. 22 email, said its case regarding Griggs remains “active.”
The Chronicle initially reached out to the sheriff’s office after a tip about Griggs from a member of the public. On Nov. 14, Special Services Chief Kevin Engelbertson said a detective was handling the case “due to the nature of the investigation,” and that there were “additional tests and reports yet that we need.”
“That said, it does not appear at this point in the investigation that any persons other than the deceased would have had any part in her death,” wrote Engelbertson in the Nov. 14 email.
Following a second tip that Griggs had two gunshot wounds, The Chronicle reached out to the office again and spoke to the coroner’s office to obtain the information included in this report. The sheriff’s office did not release the date of the Toledo woman’s death in either exchange.
