SBI asked to restart Pitt probe
Sherrif denies that investigation into drowning was tainted
Jim Nesbitt, Staff Writer
News & Observer
A state investigation of the 2005 drowning death of a Pitt County deputy’s husband remains open despite the sheriff’s strong denial that two top officers had affairs with the deputy and hindered an initial inquiry.
Pitt County District Attorney Clark Everett has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to do additional work on the death of Stacey Dean Pollard, said Jennifer Canada, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Justice, on Wednesday.
Canada declined to comment on the nature of the new investigation. SBI agents had turned in a final report on Pollard’s death in late December, Canada said, but no charges were filed.
Everett could not be reached for comment.
Contacted early Wednesday evening, Pitt County Sheriff Mac Manning said he was unaware of Everett’s request for more SBI work on the case.
Manning staunchly defended his department’s initial investigation of Pollard’s death and dismissed the steamy allegations of a civil lawsuit filed July 5 in U.S. District Court in Greenville by the dead man’s mother, Barbara Pollard of Winterville.
“The central allegation is that we, or members of my staff, hindered or skewed the investigation, which is absolutely not true,” said Manning, who said he is in contact with the lead detective and crime scene investigators handling the case. “I’m confident our folks did their job as they were supposed to do it.”
Manning also said Lt. Michelle Pollard, 37, had nothing to do with the death of her husband, who had been an epileptic since his early teens.
The lawsuit alleges that she failed an SBI polygraph and later changed her account of her husband’s death.
At first, she told sheriff’s investigators that she had found her husband’s body floating in the pool at their home the night of Nov. 18, 2005, while bringing him a cup of hot chocolate, according to the lawsuit. She said her husband was not taking medication for his epilepsy.
“So he must have had a seizure and fell in the pool,” the lawsuit said Lt. Pollard told Paula Dance, the sheriff’s lead investigator.
Later, Lt. Pollard told investigators she surprised her husband by pushing him into the pool, then ran into their Grimesland house and emerged later to find his floating body, the lawsuit said.
Manning said the SBI report contains a “plausible explanation” for the different accounts but declined to discuss it. He said Lt. Pollard did not misinform Dance with her first account and did not violate department policy.
Manning also said his investigators found evidence that was consistent with Lt. Pollard’s original story but could also fit her second account.
“I am satisfied that Lieutenant Pollard did not cause the death of her husband,” Manning said.
Stacey Pollard’s family expressed concerns about the department’s investigation in January 2006, and Manning asked the SBI to step in roughly two months later. He also said three investigations — by his office, the SBI and the state medical examiner — had reached the same conclusion: Stacey Pollard’s death was an accident.
The autopsy Nov. 19, 2005, found drowning to be the cause of Pollard’s death, possibly after a seizure, said Dr. John Butts, the state’s chief medical examiner.
But Stacey Pollard’s family remains convinced there was a coverup and SBI agents should have been called immediately. They say he was on the verge of leaving his wife because of her extramarital affairs.
“My brother’s dead, and we don’t really know what happened that night,” said Lynn Pollard Sutton, his sister. “There’s two versions. Is there a third?”
The 19-page lawsuit claims two top deputies named as defendants — Lee Moore and Rick Fisher — hampered the actions of sheriff’s investigators because of romantic relationships with Lt. Pollard, who was a detective at the time of her husband’s death.
On the night of Stacey Pollard’s death, Moore denied at least three requests by Dance to bring in the SBI to investigate “one of our own,” the lawsuit said. Fisher sat in every time Dance questioned Lt. Pollard, hampering the investigation, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit names Manning and Lt. Pollard as co-defendants. Moore, Fisher and Pollard could not be reached for comment.
Manning said he personally investigated rumored affairs involving his two top deputies and Lt. Pollard. Both Fisher and Moore denied having affairs with Lt. Pollard, although Moore said he briefly dated her four or five years ago when she was separated. Moore, who is single, was not a supervisor at the time, Manning said.
“I have investigated it, and my opinion is that it did not happen, and I had no credible evidence that it did,” the sheriff said. “It’s like a whole lot of old stuff resurrected all at once.”
Stacey Pollard, who was 33 at the time of his death, was a construction worker and lifelong resident of Pitt County, his family said. He and Michelle Pollard were married about nine years and had no children, they said.
He liked to go four-wheeling, hunting and fishing, said Sandy Pollard Griffin, another sister.
Although her mother’s lawsuit asks for substantial monetary damages, Griffin bristles at the suggestion they’re in it for the money.
“Justice and the truth,” she said. “The family’s searching for the truth. That’s what we want out of this.”
(News researcher Becky Ogburn contributed to this report.)