From Caring Dad to Dead in Custody: Highway Mystery Rattles West Virginia

After over six weeks of ready, over 100 calls to West Virginia State Police, and even an announcement by the governor, it will probably really feel as if everybody however the household of Edmond “Eddie” Exline is aware of how he died.

On Monday, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, in saying a sweeping investigation into misconduct inside the West Virginia State Police, highlighted the case by vaguely suggesting he had seen “very regarding” video of Exline’s arrest. The next day the ousted head of the state police referred to as what was heard in a body-cam video “horrible.”

However the household has obtained little info past what they learn within the papers—and is decrying what they are saying is a failure of West Virginia State Police to correctly defend the mentally in poor health.

“The state is failing this household of simply frequent courtesy of giving us some info,” Tina Balzhiser, the mom of Exline’s son, stated in a message to The Each day Beast. “We’ve discovered each single factor out from the newspapers. We will’t even get info from the state. His son has had one cellphone name from one police investigator.”

West Virginia State Police declined to remark to The Each day Beast, citing an ongoing investigation.

What little they’ve discovered is disturbing: that Exline, a 45-year-old caring father who liked to farm and trip bikes, and who later struggled with psychological sickness, died within the custody of a state police company now on the heart of a scandalous misconduct investigation.

“No person needs to get that knock on the door at two o’clock within the morning after which to not have solutions for weeks later. That’s what hurts,” stated Sarah Hartman-Exline, Edmond’s sister-in-law, who referred to as for higher coaching for officers. “As a result of he was a human, and nobody deserves to die like that on the aspect of an interstate.”

In accordance with an preliminary launch by West Virginia State Police, at 9:15 p.m. on Feb. 12, a single state trooper responded to stories that a person was strolling alongside a freeway close to Martinsburg, West Virginia. That particular person, Exline, was later confirmed to be useless.

In accordance with Hartman-Exline, she and her husband first discovered about Exline’s loss of life after they obtained a loud knock on their door round 2 a.m.

A Maryland State Trooper instructed them that their brother had died, however little extra, and that they need to anticipate to listen to from West Virginia State Police. (The household lives on each side of the border.)

As a substitute, Exline’s brothers, son, and different family endured two days of silence.

Relations say they referred to as state police over 100 occasions for almost 50 hours earlier than they obtained any info—and needed to rely on newspaper articles to begin to choose up the items of how their liked one ended up within the morgue.

“They have been form of taking turns, you already know,” stated John-Mark Atkinson, the lawyer representing Hartman-Exline and her husband James Exline. “As a result of it is simply exhausting calling, calling, calling so that they’d rotate who would name.”

Preliminary particulars they discovered via newspaper articles have been frustratingly imprecise: {that a} wrestle occurred after a trooper discovered Exline strolling alongside the freeway and earlier than Exline grew to become unresponsive.

Ultimately, after hours of desperately hounding the company for additional info, Hartman-Exline lastly was in a position to converse to a trooper from neighboring Charles City, who shared extra particulars from the encounter: that two different officers responded to the scene; that there was a wrestle to the bottom to get Exline handcuffed; that cops have been out of contact with dispatch for 5 minutes; and that after he was cuffed within the automotive, Exline was taken again out of the automotive so cops might attempt to revive him.

On Monday, a WVSP officer from Charles City confirmed to ABC Information that Exline was tased in the course of the encounter, and the previous high cop within the West Virginia State Police instructed listeners at Metro Information that three officers have been on go away and a legal investigation had been launched.

However though a number of officers have copped to the existence of video—which might inform, as soon as and for all, what actually occurred in the course of the lethal encounter—state police have but to launch it.

“What I’ve seen the video shouldn’t be nice as a result of it is at evening time on a Sunday evening however the audio is horrible,” former state police Superintendent Jan Cahill instructed speak radio host Hoppy Kercheval in an interview after his exit from the company. “And I will not go into the small print as a result of it is an energetic investigation.”

The rising cloud over what actually occurred that day is darkened by a historical past in Berkeley County of alleged police brutality by state troopers. In 2018, police have been caught on video allegedly beating a teen in the identical county, and state cops have lately turn into the topic of an increasing misconduct probe after an nameless letter was despatched to lawmakers—prompting, it appears, Exline’s case to cross the governor’s desk.

On Monday, Justice admitted he, too, had seen the video, and referred to as the case “very very regarding.”

Exline, family stated, grew up on a farm proper over the border from the japanese panhandle of West Virginia along with his 4 brothers, the place he discovered to like working with the earth and, later, to trip bikes.

“They have been spoiled. There you go. They have been spoiled,” stated Hartman-Exline. “They obtained what they needed and… up till they have been adults, you already know, them boys lived with [their mother] the remainder of her life.”

Exline’s father, a trucker and a Vietnam veteran, struggled with psychological sickness, the household defined.

Ultimately, Exline’s thoughts additionally started to struggle towards him as nicely, and he was first identified with paranoid schizophrenia within the mid-2000s, in response to a GoFundMe posted by Balzhiser.

“The Exline household has been plagued with psychological sickness. If it isn’t been PTSD or paranoid schizophrenia or simply one thing all through the household,” stated Hartman-Exline. At one level, she stated, “you already know, we needed to love him from a distance.”

Regardless of a number of run-ins with the legislation, together with home violence-related allegations, Balzhiser stated that Exline’s actions have been pushed by his sickness and the failures of society to guard those that are sick.

He was “the perfect dad that he knew how one can be,” Balzhiser instructed The Each day Beast, a sentiment echoed by his son.

Exline helped educate his son to farm and trip a motorbike and how one can work on automobiles, and by no means missed a baseball recreation, members of the family stated.

“And if there’s something on this world that my son is aware of it’s that his dad liked him and his dad didn’t need to die by the very fingers that needs to be defending him,” Balzhiser stated.

State authorities nonetheless have but to launch Exline’s physique to household or any fundamental details about his explanation for loss of life to household or the press.

“We have to maintain not solely the wv state police accountable however the US we have to work as a rustic and get long run amenities nationwide for our mentally in poor health,” Balzhiser wrote to The Each day Beast, additionally explaining in her GoFundMe that “anybody who is aware of this illness would know as soon as they’re on meds they assume they’re higher and cease taking the meds.”

“We put these mentally ills in hospitals lengthy sufficient to make them appear somewhat regular then throw them again out on the streets. It don’t work and it’s simply getting worse,” Balzhiser instructed The Each day Beast. “The system fails our mentally in poor health. The [West Virginia] state police have failed our group.”