HOPKINTON, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The Middlesex County District Attorney said at a press conference Tuesday that the death of a Black Hopkinton 16-year-old in April was still being investigated, and that a cause of death was still being determined by the medical examiner.
The press conference came amid social media criticism that the DA's Office was ignoring Mikayla Miller's death by not investigating the circumstances as suspicious, with many claiming that the teen was murdered and the District Attorney was covering it up, including a statement attributed to Miller's mother.
District Attorney Marian Ryan was able to share some preliminary precise details about the night of Miller's death.
The DA said a "physical altercation" broke out between Mikayla Miller and a group of other teenagers in the early evening on Saturday, April 17. The altercation happened at a clubhouse in Miller's apartment complex, and Miller's mother called the police. Miller told the police that she had been pushed and punched in the face by the other teenagers.
Mikayla's mother went to bed believing she was still in the apartment at around 9:30 PM.
DA Ryan said Miller's phone recorded that she walked around 1,300 steps overnight between 9:00 and 10:00 PM — roughly the same distance between her home, and the place where her body was found in the woods on a trail off of North Main Street on the morning of April 18.
Miller was discovered with her phone.
The DA found that all the teenagers involved in the earlier altercation with Miller had alibis, and were in other locations when she died.
"The notion that this office...is engaged in some sort of cover-up...is patently false," said Ryan. "This case will not be closed until we have exhausted all avenues," she said.
She said she did not have any evidence that the altercation was race-based.
Mikayla's mother said she was first told the death was a suicide, the Boston Globe reported.
A vigil will be held in Mikayla Miller's memory and to demand more answers in her case at the Boston Marathon starting line in Hopkinton on Thursday afternoon.
WBZ's Karyn Regal (@Karynregal) reports:
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(Photo: Middlesex County DA's Office)