With the facts in dispute and many seeking answers regarding a Southern Illinois University student’s death in February, Morton Grove Mayor Dan DiMaria held a news conference Saturday to “keep the word alive.”
“This is not just a tragedy,” DiMaria said. “It is compounded by confusion and misinformation. We need to get the facts and let the family get some peace.”
The details surrounding 19-year-old Morton Grove resident Pravin Varughese’s demise — a party, a ride, a walk outside on a cold February night in downstate Carbondale — were the focus as supporters, including a physician, the family’s attorney and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, addressed a packed room at the Morton Grove Civic Center.
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Lovely Varughese, Pravin’s mother, expressed her frustration with an investigation she said “makes the victim the suspect.” She has filed a lawsuit against the city of Carbondale, police Chief Jody O’Guinn, who has since been fired, and the person who had given Pravin a ride from a party on the night he was last seen alive. The lawsuit claims her son was beaten to death by the person who gave him a ride and that O’Guinn “failed to conduct a search of any kind of the wooded area” and “failed to put out an (all-points bulletin).”
At the news conference, Dr. Ben Margolis, the director of The Autopsy Center of Chicago who performed a second autopsy on Pravin Varughese, again explained his findings, which differ from those provided by the Jackson County coroner’s office. The first autopsy found Pravin Varughese died of hypothermia with no evidence of foul play.
But Margolis said he found Varughese died of blunt force trauma. He said the student suffered different blows to the face and head, all of which could not have been caused by a single impact, such as falling on a rock or hitting a tree.
Varughese’s body also showed an injury to his forearm and his left thigh, Margolis said, as well as bruises below his knees and scratch marks that could have been caused by the difficult terrain.
Margolis also said the injury to the right arm showed healing, indicating Pravin was alive several hours to a day or more after the injury.
Regarding negative toxicology tests, Margolis said it was “complicated” because the body metabolizes both alcohol and marijuana and it is possible the substances had cleared his system.
Margolis addressed whether Varughese’s injuries were accidental, as he went through the woods, or caused by another individual. Margolis said he thought that for the injuries to have happened only in the woods, Varughese would have had to have fallen in “multiple ways.”
A forearm injury, Margolis said, “begs the question, what body part was Pravin defending?”
Margolis suggested the student was likely defending against a blow to his head, suggesting an encounter with another individual.
Charles Stegmeyer, the family’s attorney, asked, “Why don’t we have a grand jury? Why don’t we have a coroner’s report? I said to the state’s attorney, ‘Call a grand jury or a special prosecutor.’ Or if you don’t want to do that, resign.”
Jackson County State’s Attorney Michael Carr could not be reached for comment.
Carbondale police originally said they discovered Varughese’s body about 9:45 a.m. Feb. 18 in a heavily wooded area on the eastern side of town. He had been reported missing five days earlier, and authorities said he was last seen around 11 p.m. Feb. 12 leaving a party about 3 miles from where his body was discovered.
Wearing jeans and a shirt on a night when temperatures dipped into the single digits, the former track and cross-country runner at Niles West High School fled into the wooded area after getting into a dispute with a “recent acquaintance” who gave him a ride from the party, Carbondale police said.
Hypothermia was ruled as the preliminary cause of death by the Jackson County coroner’s office, and O’Guinn told reporters at a Feb. 18 news conference that Varughese likely had trouble finding his way out of the woods because of the “difficult terrain and low temperatures.”