AMANDA WIENCKOWSKI - 19 yo (2008) - Buffalo NY

A local family continues to look for closure in the case of a young
woman whose naked body was dumped in a garbage tote. Authorities
believe she died of a drug overdose, so how did her body end up where
it did?

The family of Amanda Wienckowski says the autopsy report they were given by
authorities was incomplete. They want answers so they plan to exhume
Amanda's body, and have it flown to California to undergo a second
autopsy by a team of forensic experts.
"My daughter was murdered. And whoever killed my daughter is still out there and
nothing has been done," said Leslie Brill, Amanda's mother.
The death certificate for Amanda, which was issued by the Erie County
Medical Examiner's Office, lists her death as an "accident" due to
"acute opiate intoxication."
Amanda had been missing for a month when her body was found on church property on Buffalo's
east side in a garbage tote naked and frozen solid, back on January 8,
2009.
"Somebody killed my daughter and threw her out like she was garbage and I have no answers, no answers," said Brill.
The Buffalo Police Department is handling this investigation. Tonight,
police spokesman Mike DeGeorge re-affirmed that this case remains open
and active and in the hands of homicide detectives.
But Amanda's supporters are frustrated with the lack of progress and they
are now launching their own investigation, which starts with a second
autopsy. "We are going to exhume her body, send it out to a very famous
company to have them re-autopsy this body," said WBEN Radio Host Kathy
Weppner, who is helping coordinate this effort.
Volunteers plan to fan out into area neighborhoods next weekend to raise enough
money to fly Amanda's body to California for forensic testing.
"I told Leslie that I am going to purchase my own ticket, I am going get
on the plane with Amanda and Amanda's body will have all of the
answers," said Brill.
Brill believes the answers in this case can be unearthed when they exhume her daughter. "We don't
know what happened to her and I want to know, and I want the people
brought to justice," said Brill.
The family hopes to raise at least $7,000 next in their Justice for Amanda campaign next
week. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Erie County Medical Examiner's
Office says that they have no comment about this case.

Antoine "Justice" Garner, once considered a person of interest by police in the death of
Amanda Wienckowski last December, was acquitted Friday evening of predatory rape charges that
could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life. Garner, 23, took the stand in his own defense and insisted that he traded sex for drugs
with the 37-year-old home health care worker and said that there was no rape. "She wanted more coke, he ran out, she got upset, she called a cab," defense attorney
Joseph A. Agro said his client testified. The jury returned the not guilty verdict on predatory rape, first degree rape and sexual
abuse charges after beginning deliberations at 5:15 p.m. Friday. Garner was charged with the rape after police questioned the woman while investigating the
Wienckowski case. Garner had been declared a person of interest in the Wienckowski murder because police
learned she had gone to his house on Dec. 5 for a paid sexual encounter. The body of the 20-year-old former Kenmore woman was founded in a dumpster a month later
behind a church directly across from Garner's home. Agro said DNA testing cleared Garner of any connection to Wienckowski. "It's my understanding he told police he had nothing to do with it," Agro said. The medical examiner declared her death an accidental drug overdose, but Wienckowski's
parents and others have been skeptical, noting that her hair had been cut off and her naked
body placed into a garbage tote. Buffalo police consider it an open case. Charges against Garner in the Oct. 18, 2008, rape developed after police questioned the
woman in their investigation into the Wienckowski case, and she identified a photo of Garner. During the weeklong trial, the woman, a self-confessed drug addict, told the jury that
Garner met her in a bar and lured her to the site of the rape with an offer of cocaine. The woman told the jury that after she and Garner and another man drove to what he claimed
would be a Halloween Party at a Meyers Street address, he told the other man to leave and went
into the house with her alone. She said he immediately began choking her when they got inside. She told the jury that the powerfully built Garner strangled her into unconsciousness with
a blue cloth and lifted her off the floor before raping her and then sodomizing her before she
managed to talk her way out of the house after an hour or so. Garner, however, said the choking never happened. He said the woman got angry with him
after he ran out of cocaine, called a cab and left the house. She said the cab driver carried her into her home and called the police. But Agro said the woman declined to go to the hospital and have a rape test performed, and
he said an emergency medical technician found no evidence of bruising or other signs of
choking. "She had sort of an incredible story," Agro said. A jailhouse informant told the jury that Garner told him months ago at the Erie County
Holding Center what he had done to the woman and asked him to kill her for him. The informant testified to the jury that Garner had told him how he could get a handgun for
the killing and also how he could deface the gun so it could never be traced back to him. Prosecutor Lauren A. Gauthier told the jury that choking victims frequently show no
immediate signs of neck trauma. She described the victim as "a small, helpless woman addicted
to drugs who was the perfect victim" for Garner "and that's why he picked her out" for a
sexual assault. Gauthier conceded to the jury that the alleged victim "might not be somebody that you would
have over for dinner," but she wouldn't have agreed to let Garner's attorney "put her on
trial" in cross-examining her if she wasn't an actual sex crime victim. The jury deliberations began about five hours after Agro pressed for a mistrial based on
Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde's column Friday about Garner and Wienckowski. When Supreme Court Justice John L. Michalski asked the jurors Friday morning if they had
been exposed to any media accounts concerning Garner on television or in print and asked them
to raise their hand if they had, none raised their hands and he allowed the trial to continue.