The body of 2-year-old Jeffry Skaggs was exhumed from a tiny grave on the edge of Hickman County Wednesday, a key step by prosecutors in a nearly two decades long search to finally determine how the little boy died.
Under an agreed order filed earlier this month in Maury County Circuit Court, a second autopsy will finally be conducted -- more than a decade after questions first raised by NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
DA Reopens Investigation Of Little Boy's Death
Mom Fights Second Autopsy For 15-Month-Old Son In 2001 Case
"It’s a dramatic step but sometimes in homicide cases the only person who can give you the evidence you need is the deceased," says Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper.
It was 2001 when Jeffry Kelton Skaggs suffered a severe skull fracture. At the time he lived inside a Maury County trailer with his mother and her boyfriend when, according to the family, he fell off the bed and hit his head.
The medical examiner at the time, Dr. Charles Harlan -- who later lost his license for incompetence -- declared the death an accident.
But a number of other medical professionals believe Jeffry's skull fracture is not consistent with a fall and that his death was no accident. Which is why exhuming Jeffry's body was so critical to officials. They are hoping that x-rays at CT scans of his remains will finally determine that the 2-year-old's death was in fact a homicide.
"The whole purpose here is to find out what did happen if it’s not an accident and who’s responsible," Cooper said on Wednesday after Jeffry's body had been brought to Nashville for a second autopsy.
After Brent Cooper was elected DA in 2014, he reopened the investigation -- beginning the legal battle to exhume Kelton's body.
"The more we looked at it, the deeper we got into it, the more we realized this is a homicide investigation," Cooper later told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.
In the end, the attorney for Kelton's mother said she realized she needed to set aside her emotions.
"The average person really has no concept of what that emotion must be like," said Jason Whatley, an attorney for Jeffry's mom. "She's dealing with that, and she made an educated decision that right now this is best for the family."
In addition to the exhumantion the family will also be allowed to have its own pathologist observing the procedure.
After that's done, the agreement says the family will be able to give Jeffry Kelton Skaggs a proper, religious burial next to his grandfather in Hickman County.
