Disabled woman’s death ruled homicide

Published 1:27 pm Wednesday, August 31, 2016

DREWRYVILLE
Homicide is listed in the autopsy on Shaquille Hall, a Suffolk woman who died while staying in a Drewryville home this past March.

The cause is attributed to “blunt force trauma to the abdomen with contributing causes of diphenhydramine overdose, dehydration, starvation and battery,” according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which performed the autopsy. This information was released on Wednesday morning by Sgt. Camden Cobb, a spokesman for the Southampton County Sheriff’s office.

Both sheriff’s deputies and emergency services personnel responded to a call at 1:10 p.m. on March 2 for a report of an autistic child who had become unresponsive..

Hall, 23, was found to have suffered from cerebral palsy not autism, and Capron Rescue personnel pronounced her dead at 1:41 p.m.

“The sheriff’s office investigation revealed that Hall was in the care of her Medicaid-provided aide at the time of her death and that she had not been in the care of her family for at least the five weeks prior to her death,” Cobb wrote.

Further, the investigation had been ongoing since March 2, and the file is under review at the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office with indictments pending for a suspect that has not been named.