PHOENIX (AP) -- The county medical examiner said Tuesday it will be at least a few more weeks before officials can determine how the New York public advocate's stepdaughter-in-law died after being handcuffed and detained at the Phoenix airport.
"The doctor in this case is waiting for all testing to be done before she would rule on the cause and manner'' of death, said David Boyer, the acting director of the Maricopa County medical examiner's office.
Boyer said it could take up to a month before toxicology tests are completed on Carol Anne Gotbaum, who was arrested for disorderly conduct after she was kept off a flight at Sky Harbor International Airport.
Meanwhile, Gotbaum's family has hired an attorney to monitor the police investigation into her death, a private investigator to watch the official autopsy and a pathologist to conduct a separate examination of the body.
The family accuses police of manhandling the woman when they arrested her Friday.
Authorities have said Gotbaum, who was handcuffed and shackled to a bench, may have accidentally strangled herself.
Gotbaum, 45, was headed to an alcohol treatment program in Tucson, Ariz., when officers arrested her. Police said she was late for a flight and became angry when a gate crew didn't let her on the plane. Officers handcuffed her behind her back and took her to a holding room, where she kept screaming, authorities said.
Gotbaum "appears to have been manhandled by the Phoenix Police Department,'' said Betsy Gotbaum, the victim's stepmother-in-law and an elected watchdog of New York government. "She cried out for help at the airport, but her pleas appear to have been met by mistreatment.''
Michael Manning, who was hired by the family to monitor the police investigation, said that he sent a private investigator to keep an eye on the medical examiner's autopsy Tuesday and that a pathologist hired by the family was to conduct another examination afterward.
Manning, a prominent Phoenix lawyer who won an $8.25 million wrongful-death settlement against the county sheriff in 2000, said the medical examiner's office has been biased in the past when investigating law enforcement officials.
"The relationship between the medical examiner's office and the police is so close,'' he said. "It's professional, it's social. We're concerned about that relationship influencing the integrity of the autopsy.''
In the 2000 lawsuit against the county, Manning claimed that sheriff's deputies suffocated a jail inmate and the coroner covered up evidence of a beating. Sheriff Joe Arpaio denied the allegations, and federal authorities later dropped an investigation into Manning's allegations of excessive force, saying there wasn't enough evidence.
Manning said that in his experience, the county medical examiner's office has destroyed and created evidence.
Police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill said officers placed Carol Gotbaum in a room without a surveillance camera on Friday after her arrest. After about five to 10 minutes, officers no longer could hear her voice and went to check on her. Gotbaum was found unconscious with her hands "pressed against her neck area,'' Hill said.
Hill said officers followed established policy while detaining Gotbaum.
The Phoenix Police Department's Professional Standards Bureau is conducting an internal investigation, a standard procedure following an in-custody death.
Manning said it doesn't seem possible Gotbaum could have killed herself.
Gotbaum had started drinking heavily about three years ago, and her family noticed a serious problem with alcoholism about a year ago, Manning said. She left her three children with her husband and headed to Tucson to get better, he said.
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