Medical examiner plans own investigation

The Boone County medical examiner will look into the death of MU player Aaron O'Neal.

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- With conclusive autopsy results still weeks away, the Boone County medical examiner plans her own investigation into Tuesday's death of Missouri football player Aaron O'Neal.

Medical examiner Valerie Rao said Friday she will interview each of the 11 other players, eight conditioning coaches and three trainers present at the early afternoon workout that ended with O'Neal, 19, slumped on the Faurot Field turf. After walking off the field with the help of a trainer and then a teammate, he was taken by ambulance to University Hospital, where he died 90 minutes later.

"I want to see what eyewitnesses say," Rao said. "I'm not investigating it in light of, 'Who did bad things to this boy?' This is routine."

Rao said she is working with university lawyers to set up the interviews, perhaps as soon as early next week. University officials pledged their cooperation.

"I would anticipate we'll do whatever we can to assist her," said Chad Moller, a Missouri athletics spokesman. "We want to find out everything."

Moller said his department has begun its own quest for answers surrounding the death of O'Neal, a redshirt freshman linebacker from the St. Louis suburb of Creve Couer. He set no timeline for its completion.

Several busloads of coaches, support workers and O'Neal's teammates will leave Columbia Monday morning for his funeral in St. Louis. After suspending summer workouts for the rest of the week following O'Neal's death, the football team expects to resume the conditioning sessions Tuesday, Moller said.

"The hope is to try to get back to a normal schedule next week after the funeral service," he said. "As hard as it is to imagine, you have to get back to normal."

Rao also pledged to keep her investigation independent of the university, where she also works as an associate professor of clinical pathology and anatomical sciences. She said she expects university officials to do the same.

"I made it very clear to the university: They cannot interfere with my job as medical examiner," she said.