Perhaps LAPD police might consider an investigation into restaurant employees working the afternoon Matthew Lee ate his last lunch: A crucial and key witness for prosecutors in the Bryan Stow beating is mysteriously dead--after an allergic reaction to food. Lee was surely slated to testify in the criminal trial against Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood, the Dodgers Stadium suspects arrested just over a week ago.
It's strange timing: Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood have just been charged with felonies in beating Bryan Stow within inches of his life in the Los Angeles, California, criminal case that put Stow in a coma. Reports say Louie Sanchez's 10-year-old son could be a witness in the Bryan Stow beating case. And Matthew Lee was a witness -- possibly one of the most important witnesses, if not the most important, for the prosecution's case.
Sports fan Bryan Stow had been severely beaten at Dodgers Stadium on March 31, at a Giants-Dodgers baseball game. He had someone with him, not just at the game but also in the parking lot where Stow was attacked: Matthew Lee. Now Matthew Lee's gone -- unable to testify in any court trial regarding Stow and any accused attackers.
Witness Matthew Lee was a friend of Bryan Stow -- who was with Stow at Dodgers Stadium -- and also in the parking lot -- on the day he was attacked. The Los Angeles Police Department alleges suspects Sanchez and Norwood are Stow's attackers, responsible for the beating that left Stow fighting for his life. And now a man has died. In fact a man who Los Angeles Police say was also attacked by one of the two suspects sitting in jail.
The official statement is that Matthew Lee's death is related to a salad containing nuts -- and, very obviously, a high allergy to those nuts.
Matthew Lee died yesterday, August 1, 2011 -- barely more than a week after Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood were arrested in the criminal case of Bryan Stow. The arrests of the alleged attackers is so new that the defendants haven't even entered a plea in the Stow case yet. Meanwhile, one of the key and most important witnesses against those alleged attackers is already dead.
Lee's official cause of death isn't officially released yet by LAPD but initial reports say Lee died after a severe allergic reaction triggered by -- or associated with -- nuts contained in a salad he'd eaten for lunch on August 1.
While the adage that 'truth is stranger than fiction' does tend to prove true, the death of Matthew Lee seems a most 'coincidental' occurrence. The prosecution alleges Louie Sanchez, now in custody, punched Matthew Lee in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot before attacking Bryan Stow. Lee and his potential testimony made the friend of Bryan Stow a very important witness, for Los Angeles prosecutors, in the case against Stow's alleged attackers -- Louie Sanchez and Marvin Norwood -- who LAPD says are responsible for the beating. It's all very odd indeed.