When 20-year-old Indiana University student Joseph Smedley was found in Griffey Lake in October 2015, his death was ruled a suicide by drowning, with alcohol and cannabinoid intoxication listed as contributing factors. On paper, that might look straightforward. In reality, almost nothing about Joseph’s case is straightforward.
In Episode 7 of A Heavy Weight, “Extremely Unusual,” we step away from rumor and speculation and look directly at Joseph’s autopsy and toxicology reports. We also sit down with two experts: forensic pathologist Dr. Darrin Wolfe and drowning and bodies-found-in-water specialist Dr. Andrea Zaferes. Together, we try to understand what the science actually tells us, and what it doesn’t.
What a forensic pathologist can (and can’t) say
Dr. Wolfe walks us through the role of a forensic pathologist: to determine a cause of death (what physically led to death) and a manner of death (the larger category, natural, accident, suicide, homicide, or undetermined). In Joseph’s case, the cause of death was listed as drowning, and the manner of death was ruled suicide.
But as Dr. Wolfe explains, a suicide determination isn’t based on the body alone. It depends heavily on circumstantial information, interviews with friends and family, digital evidence, notes, patterns of behavior. In Joseph’s case, many of those pieces are missing or incomplete. Key people in Joseph’s life, including his sister Vivianne and close friends, were never interviewed by law enforcement about his mental state.
On top of that, suicide by drowning is extremely rare. In an entire career of doing autopsies, Dr. Wolfe estimates he’s only seen one clear suicide by drowning. That rarity alone makes Joseph’s ruling extremely unusual.
A body in the water
The episode opens with a detailed scene report by Eric Powell, the funeral home director called to Griffey Lake on the day Joseph’s body was recovered. He describes divers placing Joseph’s body into a bag in the water, moving him to shore, and discovering that he was fully clothed and wearing a backpack filled with rocks and other items.
From the very beginning, there are details that raise questions. Powell recalls Joseph being found supine, face up in the water, an orientation that drowning expert Dr. Zaferes notes is rare in bodies found in water. She says only a very small percentage of cases present that way, which already sets Joseph’s case apart.
Then there’s the backpack.
The backpack and the rocks
Joseph’s backpack is one of the most contested pieces of evidence in this case.
Eric Powell’s written summary notes that the backpack was on Joseph’s back and secured around his waist with a knot in the front. When they opened it, they found seven or eight large rocks, a folder with Joseph’s name on it, and an empty prescription bottle labeled to someone else.
Joseph’s autopsy report, however, describes the backpack as being strapped tightly around his chest and containing about 30 pounds of rocks. Later in the same report, “30 pounds” is crossed out and replaced with “30 kg,” about 66 pounds, roughly half of Joseph’s body weight.
These discrepancies matter. Was the backpack on his back or his chest? Were the rocks 30 pounds or 66? Did those rocks come from the shoreline at Griffey, or from somewhere else? To this day, we still don’t know where the rocks originated, and scene photographs that could help answer that question have never been released to the family or to outside experts.
For Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Zaferes, these aren’t trivial details, they’re central to understanding whether Joseph could have done this to himself, or whether someone else may have been involved.
A toxicology report in a decomposed body
Joseph’s toxicology report is just as complicated. Because his body had been in the water for roughly five days, there was no usable blood available. Instead, the lab tested decomposition fluid collected from his chest cavity.
That fluid showed a high level of ethanol, as well as THC and an antihistamine. In a living person’s blood, that alcohol level would be about three times the legal limit to drive and could cause confusion, blackouts, and difficulty walking. But in a decomposing body, those numbers are much harder to interpret. Decomposition itself can create small amounts of alcohol, and there is no simple way to work backward from that fluid to a reliable blood alcohol number at the time of death.
The tox report also shows that Joseph was tested for DMT, a hallucinogenic compound that is not part of standard autopsy panels. Dr. Wolfe notes that ordering a DMT test requires a specific request, which suggests someone believed Joseph might have used it. That suspicion, combined with rumors that Joseph may have been involved with drugs or even acting as a confidential informant, raises more questions than answers—especially given that his tox screen was ultimately negative for DMT.
In the end, Dr. Wolfe describes Joseph’s toxicology as “qualitative” rather than definitive: it shows substances were present, but doesn’t allow anyone to say with confidence what that meant for his behavior or state of mind that night.
Missing evidence, unanswered questions
The Smedley family’s questions don’t end with the autopsy and tox screen.
Joseph’s phone was reportedly recovered by the dive team and allegedly contained over 2,000 messages. The family has never been given access to the phone or its contents, even after his case was closed. They don’t know whether those messages could have shed light on Joseph’s mental state, his movements that night, or any threats he might have faced.
Then there’s the handwritten note found in Joseph’s apartment. The family asked for a handwriting analysis. Investigators collected samples from the family, but never followed through with a full analysis, and never collected samples from his roommates to compare.
Working with the family back in 2015, Dr. Zaferes helped Joseph’s father, Joe Sr., compile a long list of written questions for law enforcement. Some were answered only with the word “coroner.” Many went unanswered entirely. Basic details, like whether a methodical search for the phone was ever conducted, or what training investigators had in drowning cases, remain unclear.
As Dr. Zaferes points out, these gaps aren’t just technical issues. They’re barriers to truth, closure, and trust in the system.
Why this episode matters
This episode doesn’t claim to “solve” Joseph’s case. Instead, it asks a harder question: given all the inconsistencies and unknowns, how confident can we really be in the conclusion that Joseph died by suicide?
We talk about the emotional toll of those uncertainties on Joseph’s family, and about what it means to live in a system where, as his sister Vivianne puts it, “it’s just so easy to cover things up and just how difficult the justice system really is.”
If you’ve been following this series, Episode 7 is where the phrase “extremely unusual” stops being a description of one or two details and starts to describe the entire way Joseph’s death was handled.
You can listen to Episode 7 – “Extremely Unusual” of A Heavy Weight wherever you get your podcasts. In Episode 8, we’ll pick up right where we leave off here and ask one central question: What else can Joseph’s reports tell us—if anything—about what really happened the night he vanished?
Content note & resources:
This episode, and this post, include discussion of a death that was ruled a suicide. If you’re struggling or thinking about suicide, you’re not alone. In the U.S., you can call or text 988 or use the chat at 988lifeline.org for free, confidential support. If you’re outside the U.S., please reach out to your local crisis line or a trusted person in your life.
