August 22nd, 1995
Woman Drowns, Jumps To Death, Conflicting stories surround attack on woman found dead in river
DETRIOT — DETROIT -- A shroud of contradictions and rumors surround the death of a 33-year-old woman who police say jumped off the Belle Isle bridge and into the Detroit River after being attacked early Saturday.
Would a woman who could not swim intentionally jump off the bridge or was she forced off? Did dozens of bystanders cheer as Doletha Word was being beaten by a man twice her size? Was she forced to strip to her underwear?
The facts depend on whom you ask.
Today, police plan to charge three Detroit men in her death, though it was unclear yesterday what those charges would be. The names of the suspects -- a 19-year-old and two 20-year-olds -- were not released yesterday.
According to official reports, Ms. Word -- who was alone in her car -- had been involved in a minor traffic accident on the island around 2:30 a.m. Saturday.
The other car, with three men inside, then followed her onto the bridge that connects the island to the city and rammed her car, forcing her to stop, said Detroit police Sgt. John Morel.
The men started arguing with her and one of them pulled Ms. Word from the car, beat her up and smashed her car windows with a crowbar, police said.
"There were rumors floating around that the crowd was cheering; that's not true," said Detroit police Cmdr. Gerald Stewart. "There were people out there, but in fact some of the people who were with the guy who did the beating tried to get him to stop.
"A lot of stuff was said about how he made her undress; that's not true. When she was taken out of the car, her clothes were torn off as she was being dragged out of the car. He did beat her, but not with a crowbar; he hit her with his fist."
The man was not carrying the crowbar when he approached her again, Commander Stewart said. But when Ms. Word saw the attacker headed in her direction, she jumped from the bridge, Commander Stewart said.
Lawrence Walker, 21, was in the bumper-to-bumper traffic that had formed on the bridge when he noticed a crowd running to the edge. He got out of his car and followed the crowd.
"I wasn't trying to be Superman or anything," he said. "I just saw something and jumped in without thinking about it."
But Ms. Word must have mistaken him and a friend that went into the water with him for her attackers, he said. She moved away from them, and he quickly lost sight of her.
Mr. Walker said about 50 people had gathered on the bridge when he ran up, many of them laughing at the men beating Ms. Word. He said one person there had a cellular phone but would not call police.
Two men on personal watercraft found Ms. Word's body -- missing one leg -- about 11:30 a.m. Saturday near Wyandotte, Mich., south of Detroit. Police said the leg may have been severed by a boat propeller.
Relatives described Ms. Word, who worked as a cashier at a grocery store while pursuing a degree in business administration, as the backbone of her close-knit family. When her brother James was shot to death in May, she became the family's source of support. Among her relatives is a daughter, 13.
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Crowd watches as woman hounded to death
By By Aug 22, 1995
DETROIT - As dozens of onlookers gathered, and some cheered, three men pulled a woman from her car, ripped off her clothes, then chased her until she either jumped or was forced off a bridge to her death.
None of the 40 or so passers-by tried to help Deletha Word during the confrontation that began with two minor traffic accidents early Saturday on the Belle Isle bridge, said police Sgt. John Morel.A man who arrived late tried to rescue her from the Detroit River but couldn't reach her. The 33-year-old woman's body, missing a leg, was found several miles downstream later that morning.
"My baby was down there all by herself. I know she was scared to death," the woman's mother, Dortha Word, said as she cried Monday. "How could they be so cruel?"
Trouble started around 3 a.m., Morel said, when Word was involved in two minor traffic accidents on Belle Island. One car with three men inside chased her onto the bridge connecting the island to the city and rammed her car, forcing her to stop.
One of the men smashed her car with a crowbar and pulled her from the car, ripping off some of her clothes, Cmdr. Gerald
Stewart said. The man pushed her against the car and beat her, he said.
One of the men weighed nearly 300 pounds, according to a police source quoted in The Detroit News. Word, who was 4-foot-11, weighed 115 pounds, her mother said.
When Word tried to run away, police said the man with the crowbar chased her. What happened after that is unclear. Police are not saying whether Word jumped or was forced off the bridge, but Mrs. Word said she is sure her daughter was forced into the Detroit River.
"They … made her leap over that bridge and beat her hands. She was holding onto the bridge, and beat her hands away from that banister," she said said, citing an account she said police gave her.
Word's cousin Carol Neely said Word would have never jumped because she did not know how to swim.
Lawrence Walker, 21, was in the bumper-to-bumper traffic that had formed on the bridge when he noticed a crowd running to the edge. He got out of his car and followed, jumping into the river after her.
"I wasn't trying to be Superman or anything," he said. "I just saw something and jumped in without thinking about it."
Walker said about 50 people were gathered when he ran up, many of them laughing about the men beating Word. He said one person had a cellular phone but would not call police.
"It seemed like people didn't care," he said.
By Sunday afternoon, police had arrested three men, two age 20 and one age 19. It was not clear what charges they faced.
Word, who had a 13-year-old daughter, worked at a grocery store while earning a bachelor's degree in marketing.
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Tearful and furious, Dortha Word slammed a clenched fist down onto the bridge's gray steel railing on Monday night as she pictured her daughter clinging to it desperately, before falling to her death in the broad Detroit River early Saturday morning.
Then Mrs. Word turned and looked back across the bridge, across the lanes where the police said traffic had been backed up as her daughter, Deletha, 33, was pulled from her car after a minor accident, stripped of some or all of her clothes, and beaten before she jumped into the river to escape. All the while, about 40 people were looking on.
"The ones who were standing and looking, they were just as guilty," said Mrs. Word, who came to the bridge to pray and remember Deletha.
She said she thought she knew why they watched: "They like that kind of entertainment."
Because of conflicting accounts, some details of Deletha Word's death are hazy. But despite the debate here were all her clothes torn off? did the onlookers cheer? -- one thing seems clear: No one intervened until Ms. Word, who could not swim, had vanished into the dark green water.
The incident has transfixed Detroit, which has been trying to shake its image as a crime-ridden city. Ms. Word's death has made headlines for days and dominated television news as the police try to unravel the case. Today, prosecutors charged a 19-year-old college student with second-degree murder in her death; he has no criminal record.
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"There's a lot at stake in imagery here for the city of Detroit," Kevin Joyce, a talk-radio host on WJR, told his listeners this afternoon. "People wonder, 'Why don't suburbanites come downtown? Why don't business and industry want to pay for the privilege of investing downtown?' Stories like this scare people away."
Some callers responded that such crimes happen everywhere. "People are really doing themselves in, not going down to Detroit," said a caller from the suburbs.
Mrs. Word had more personal concerns as the sun set behind the city's skyline and she stood by the flowers, real and artificial, that friends and relatives had tied to the bridge's railing in memory of her daughter.
She worried about Deletha's daughter, Daneeka Lamb, who is 13. She spoke of how Deletha worked at a Detroit grocery store, and how she dreamed of opening a clothing store after she earned her bachelor's degree next year from the Detroit College of Business. And she wondered again why, as the incident on the bridge escalated, no one stepped in.
"That's the hard part for me," she said. "There's no way my daughter would have stood and watched that."
Deletha was the second child Mrs. Word has lost this year. Her son, James, was shot to death in May.
Today, Martel Welch Jr., neatly dressed in a khaki suit, pleaded not guilty as he was charged in 36th District Court in the death of Ms. Word. Judge Kerry Leon Jackson said one witness described Mr. Welch's picking up Ms. Word and threatening to throw her from the bridge; others said she jumped on her own. Because of the conflicting accounts, Judge Jackson said, he set bail at $250,000.
At about 2:30 Saturday morning, Ms. Word was driving on Belle Isle, a large teardrop-shaped island park between Detroit and the Canadian shore where young people cruise on warm summer nights, listening to blaring music. According to the police, she struck Mr. Welch's car and, without stopping, drove onto the stately General MacArthur Bridge, which connects the park and the city.
Mr. Welch, with two passengers in his car, gave chase, catching up to Ms. Word in the traffic on the bridge. She then backed into his car, the police said.
Before dozens of witnesses, Mr. Welch dragged Ms. Word from her car and beat her with his hands, said Deputy Chief Benny N. Napoleon of the Detroit Police Department.
Citing the accounts of witnesses, Mr. Napoleon said that as one of Mr. Welch's companions held Ms. Word, Mr. Welch smashed her car windows with a tire iron. Mr. Napoleon said Ms. Word broke away and jumped into the river to escape.
The police said earlier that two onlookers jumped in after her to try to save her.
The police have requested an autopsy and toxicology tests on Ms. Word, Deputy Chief Napoleon said.
Richard Padzieski, chief of operations for the Wayne County Prosecutor's office, said Mr. Welch had been charged with second-degree murder because he created a "dangerous situation" that led to Ms. Word's death.
But a lawyer for Mr. Welch said that while he did chase Ms. Word in his car, he did not cause her to jump in the river. The lawyer, Wanda R. Cal, said some of the 40 or more onlookers blocked her escape and threatened her.
"I think she was intimidated by the large number of people in the crowd," Ms. Cal said. "I don't think she singled out my client."
Mr. Welch works full time in maintenance at a hospital, Ms. Cal said. An architectural design student, he planned to enroll as a sophomore at Eastern Michigan University in the fall, having completed his freshman year at Wayne State University here.
Rare but sensational crimes have a way of dogging Detroit, where residents worry openly and often about the city's tattered national image. "Say Nice Things About Detroit!" reads a sign outside a downtown pizzeria. Many hope fluttering signs of economic recovery and a declining murder rate herald a turnaround under the leadership of an aggressive and popular new Mayor, Dennis Archer.
But last week a man was arrested and accused of using Krazy Glue to seal his 5-year-old daughter's eyes. Then Ms. Word was attacked. Her body was found later Saturday morning about 10 miles down river from the bridge. She had drowned, according to the medical examiner's office. One of her legs had been cut off, apparently by a boat's propeller.
Relatives described Ms. Word, who worked as a cashier at a grocery store while pursuing a degree in business administration, as the backbone of her close-knit family. When her brother James was shot to death in May, she became the family's source of support. Among her relatives is a daughter, 13.
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Crowd watches as woman hounded to deathBy By Aug 22, 1995
DETROIT - As dozens of onlookers gathered, and some cheered, three men pulled a woman from her car, ripped off her clothes, then chased her until she either jumped or was forced off a bridge to her death.
None of the 40 or so passers-by tried to help Deletha Word during the confrontation that began with two minor traffic accidents early Saturday on the Belle Isle bridge, said police Sgt. John Morel.A man who arrived late tried to rescue her from the Detroit River but couldn't reach her. The 33-year-old woman's body, missing a leg, was found several miles downstream later that morning.
"My baby was down there all by herself. I know she was scared to death," the woman's mother, Dortha Word, said as she cried Monday. "How could they be so cruel?"
Trouble started around 3 a.m., Morel said, when Word was involved in two minor traffic accidents on Belle Island. One car with three men inside chased her onto the bridge connecting the island to the city and rammed her car, forcing her to stop.
One of the men smashed her car with a crowbar and pulled her from the car, ripping off some of her clothes, Cmdr. Gerald
Stewart said. The man pushed her against the car and beat her, he said.
One of the men weighed nearly 300 pounds, according to a police source quoted in The Detroit News. Word, who was 4-foot-11, weighed 115 pounds, her mother said.
When Word tried to run away, police said the man with the crowbar chased her. What happened after that is unclear. Police are not saying whether Word jumped or was forced off the bridge, but Mrs. Word said she is sure her daughter was forced into the Detroit River.
"They … made her leap over that bridge and beat her hands. She was holding onto the bridge, and beat her hands away from that banister," she said said, citing an account she said police gave her.
Word's cousin Carol Neely said Word would have never jumped because she did not know how to swim.
Lawrence Walker, 21, was in the bumper-to-bumper traffic that had formed on the bridge when he noticed a crowd running to the edge. He got out of his car and followed, jumping into the river after her.
"I wasn't trying to be Superman or anything," he said. "I just saw something and jumped in without thinking about it."
Walker said about 50 people were gathered when he ran up, many of them laughing about the men beating Word. He said one person had a cellular phone but would not call police.
"It seemed like people didn't care," he said.
By Sunday afternoon, police had arrested three men, two age 20 and one age 19. It was not clear what charges they faced.
Word, who had a 13-year-old daughter, worked at a grocery store while earning a bachelor's degree in marketing.
****************
Tearful and furious, Dortha Word slammed a clenched fist down onto the bridge's gray steel railing on Monday night as she pictured her daughter clinging to it desperately, before falling to her death in the broad Detroit River early Saturday morning.
Then Mrs. Word turned and looked back across the bridge, across the lanes where the police said traffic had been backed up as her daughter, Deletha, 33, was pulled from her car after a minor accident, stripped of some or all of her clothes, and beaten before she jumped into the river to escape. All the while, about 40 people were looking on.
"The ones who were standing and looking, they were just as guilty," said Mrs. Word, who came to the bridge to pray and remember Deletha.
She said she thought she knew why they watched: "They like that kind of entertainment."
Because of conflicting accounts, some details of Deletha Word's death are hazy. But despite the debate here were all her clothes torn off? did the onlookers cheer? -- one thing seems clear: No one intervened until Ms. Word, who could not swim, had vanished into the dark green water.
The incident has transfixed Detroit, which has been trying to shake its image as a crime-ridden city. Ms. Word's death has made headlines for days and dominated television news as the police try to unravel the case. Today, prosecutors charged a 19-year-old college student with second-degree murder in her death; he has no criminal record.
Continue reading the main story
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
"There's a lot at stake in imagery here for the city of Detroit," Kevin Joyce, a talk-radio host on WJR, told his listeners this afternoon. "People wonder, 'Why don't suburbanites come downtown? Why don't business and industry want to pay for the privilege of investing downtown?' Stories like this scare people away."
Some callers responded that such crimes happen everywhere. "People are really doing themselves in, not going down to Detroit," said a caller from the suburbs.
Mrs. Word had more personal concerns as the sun set behind the city's skyline and she stood by the flowers, real and artificial, that friends and relatives had tied to the bridge's railing in memory of her daughter.
She worried about Deletha's daughter, Daneeka Lamb, who is 13. She spoke of how Deletha worked at a Detroit grocery store, and how she dreamed of opening a clothing store after she earned her bachelor's degree next year from the Detroit College of Business. And she wondered again why, as the incident on the bridge escalated, no one stepped in.
"That's the hard part for me," she said. "There's no way my daughter would have stood and watched that."
Deletha was the second child Mrs. Word has lost this year. Her son, James, was shot to death in May.
Today, Martel Welch Jr., neatly dressed in a khaki suit, pleaded not guilty as he was charged in 36th District Court in the death of Ms. Word. Judge Kerry Leon Jackson said one witness described Mr. Welch's picking up Ms. Word and threatening to throw her from the bridge; others said she jumped on her own. Because of the conflicting accounts, Judge Jackson said, he set bail at $250,000.
At about 2:30 Saturday morning, Ms. Word was driving on Belle Isle, a large teardrop-shaped island park between Detroit and the Canadian shore where young people cruise on warm summer nights, listening to blaring music. According to the police, she struck Mr. Welch's car and, without stopping, drove onto the stately General MacArthur Bridge, which connects the park and the city.
Mr. Welch, with two passengers in his car, gave chase, catching up to Ms. Word in the traffic on the bridge. She then backed into his car, the police said.
Before dozens of witnesses, Mr. Welch dragged Ms. Word from her car and beat her with his hands, said Deputy Chief Benny N. Napoleon of the Detroit Police Department.
Citing the accounts of witnesses, Mr. Napoleon said that as one of Mr. Welch's companions held Ms. Word, Mr. Welch smashed her car windows with a tire iron. Mr. Napoleon said Ms. Word broke away and jumped into the river to escape.
The police said earlier that two onlookers jumped in after her to try to save her.
The police have requested an autopsy and toxicology tests on Ms. Word, Deputy Chief Napoleon said.
Richard Padzieski, chief of operations for the Wayne County Prosecutor's office, said Mr. Welch had been charged with second-degree murder because he created a "dangerous situation" that led to Ms. Word's death.
But a lawyer for Mr. Welch said that while he did chase Ms. Word in his car, he did not cause her to jump in the river. The lawyer, Wanda R. Cal, said some of the 40 or more onlookers blocked her escape and threatened her.
"I think she was intimidated by the large number of people in the crowd," Ms. Cal said. "I don't think she singled out my client."
Mr. Welch works full time in maintenance at a hospital, Ms. Cal said. An architectural design student, he planned to enroll as a sophomore at Eastern Michigan University in the fall, having completed his freshman year at Wayne State University here.
Rare but sensational crimes have a way of dogging Detroit, where residents worry openly and often about the city's tattered national image. "Say Nice Things About Detroit!" reads a sign outside a downtown pizzeria. Many hope fluttering signs of economic recovery and a declining murder rate herald a turnaround under the leadership of an aggressive and popular new Mayor, Dennis Archer.
But last week a man was arrested and accused of using Krazy Glue to seal his 5-year-old daughter's eyes. Then Ms. Word was attacked. Her body was found later Saturday morning about 10 miles down river from the bridge. She had drowned, according to the medical examiner's office. One of her legs had been cut off, apparently by a boat's propeller.
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