be undetermined

“There’s really nothing to be undetermined about,” said Dr. Zhongxue Hua, chief of the forensic pathology division at Rutgers University.

Because Menchel found the cause of the death to be “undetermined,” Walla Walla County Coroner Richard Greenwood requested a second examination by Dr. J. Matthew Lacy of the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office, which occurred in 2021.

But after reviewing the video footage, the medical examiner revised Fredericks’ manner of death to be “undetermined,” finding that officers’ restraint and placement of Fredericks on his stomach after his arrest may have contributed to his death.

Whether the Lerner family reconsiders those options is among the questions in the wake of the death of its patriarch, and as with the others, the answers may be undetermined for some time.

The inquest found the cause of death to be undetermined pending lab results.