‘This Is an Asphyxial Death’: Medical Examiner at Marine Vet’s Trial Says Michael Jackson Impersonator Died From ‘Compression of the Neck’

Dr. Cynthia Harris dismissed any suggestion that Jordan Neely died from drug use: Neely could have “had enough fentanyl in his system to put down an elephant” and it wouldn’t change her diagnosis.

AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
Daniel Penny arrives at the court after break at New York, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura

The homeless Michael Jackson impersonator, Jordan Neely, died from asphyxiation, a medical examiner testified on Friday in the trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who put Neely in a fatal chokehold on a New York subway last year. Defense attorneys attempted to challenge the examiner’s cause of death but did not finish their cross-examination on Friday.         

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