Sheriff says autopsy confirms suicide
By DON BEHM
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
OSHKOSH, Wis. — An autopsy confirmed a 30-year-old Town of Erin man died Thursday morning in Oshkosh of a “sharp force injury to his neck” while in the custody of two Washington County sheriff’s deputies, the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department said Friday.
Buy a link hereMarc J. Rosario was being driven in a squad car to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute north of Oshkosh when one of the deputies saw the injury and called 911, authorities said. The squad car stopped at the Sheriff’s Department parking lot about 7 a.m. Thursday, where the Washington County deputies gave Rosario first aid until Oshkosh paramedics arrived.
Rosario died a short time later. The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the circumstances of the man’s death, Sheriff Michael Brooks said.
On Thursday, Brooks described the injury as a self-inflicted cut to the neck. The autopsy was conducted Thursday.
No other information has been released about the death, and officials have not commented on whether Rosario was handcuffed inside the squad car during the drive to Oshkosh.
The two deputies have been placed on administrative duty pending the outcome of the investigation, Washington County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said. Schmidt’s department is conducting a separate internal investigation of the incident, he said.
Rosario was taken into protective custody about 2 a.m. Thursday in Erin in response to a concern about his mental health.
Copyright 2008 Journal Sentinel