David Torrence's Death Ruled an Accidental Drowning, But For His Family Questions Remain Because Of Death Threats

It probably went down this way.... wrote:

He had a beer, it was (August in Scottsdale, is hot AFand it gets well above 110degrees during the day and at night it's not much cooler. Torrence decided on a late night dip in the pool. He dives in for a few minutes, cardiac event occurs perhaps, loses consciousness. If he was on the pool deck, he lives but if your unconscious in the water, you're toast- he sinks to the bottom of pool and drowns.

He also did a long intense set of 400's that afternoon according to his Strava account.

No. You can do better. So do it.

Perhaps he was injected or otherwise dosed with something that messed up his heart.

the gentleman wrote:

Does anyone see how preposterous this is? Is it good journalism to reveal that there were death threats about David Torrence? Yes. That is mostly all Jon Gault did. Mostly.

.

False.

1)Jon got the toxicology and autopsy unlike anyone else.

2) He talked to doctors all over the globe to see that that meant.

3) He talked to Torrence's mom about it. She revealed she was unhappy about it and revealed the death threats so he followed up on that and talked to Magness, Cook and a few others.

4) He talked to the Police.

So yeah, he did no work.

He did plenty of great work. But you're not helping at all with the end game by not providing the editorial insight that would let the facts speak for themselves and not spread falsities.

I'm convinced. And meanwhile Aden and co. skate by when we all know in our heart of hearts they're dopers. torrence also mighta had some dirt on Lagat, who knows. and he certainly wasn't a Makh Daddy fan. lotta bad stuff goin on here

Here is some information people asked about in previous posts. These are facts from the police report:

1) A canvass of the area for video evidence was conducted on 8/31/17. No surveillance cameras were located at the complex or individual apartments.

2) Regarding the possibility of heart complications (abnormal rhythm) from sudden water temperature disparity:

- Ambient air temperature of 117.6 degrees F at 7:30 am, reading taken at poolside ramada

- Pool water - 86 degrees F, at depth of 4 feet.

3) Regarding the likelihood that David would or would not have been swimming laps in the complex pool:

- Pool length was 75 feet or 25 yards (and 41 feet wide in that section) - certainly sufficient to swim laps.

Jon did a nice job reporting this story. Raised some good questions, spoke to many of the right people. LetsRun is fortunate to have an actual journalist who can tackle a complex story like this. Jon is not well-served by the editorial feeding frenzy Weldon and Robert attempt to create around his solid reporting.

Marathon Fan wrote:

It is fairly possible that someone did not try and drown him. A huge, strong man could have surprised him and choked him seamlessly to death. They say there were no signs of struggle, but how can long does it take to choke a 130-pound guy anyway? Choked him then threw him into the pool.

Great investigation letsrun.

Yeah, that's it. I'm sure the coroner totally would ignore the fact that there was no water in his lungs and call it an accidental drowning anyway. You're a full-on idiot.

Murder seems awfully severe for a motive of whistleblowing retaliation. Look at Lance Armstrong - he had the most to lose of any doper - and the worse he did was sabotage the careers of people who opposed him. Would somebody kill to silence a whistleblower? Maybe if they were involved in high stakes crime, but this is just T&F. I could imagine a scenario where a saboteur could plant EPO on him in an attempt to ruin his career and accidentally dose too much that invoked a cardiac event, however they would find it in the autopsy results.

For a drowning murder, it seems implausible that nobody would see/hear a second person if there was a struggle. Think of the cardio strength required to drown an olympic athlete in open water. If there were a violent motive, I'm sure there would be more convenient ways to kill a distance runner than in his condo complex pool.

While I think it would be prudent to research the loose ends, the most likely scenario is an unfortunate cardiac event taking place while in a pool. It's sad. I do think it was worthwhile for LRC to do some investigative journalism and open the investigation further. RIP DT.

He was murdered is my feeling after reading the article.

zant wrote:

I could imagine a scenario where a saboteur could plant EPO on him in an attempt to ruin his career and accidentally dose too much that invoked a cardiac event, however they would find it in the autopsy results.

I greatly disagree with the notion that an autopsy or toxicology report would necessarily find a poison or drug. Look at how many drugs that drug tests fail to find in normal athletic testing and there isn't much hope for a toxicology report to find all poisons given that there is a much greater number of ways to kill someone compared to performance enhancement.

Typically you have to have an idea of what types of drugs or poisons to test and if there are no obvious signs on the surface then the more sensitive tests (if there exists any) may be skipped.

For example, I'm curious if the toxicology tests looked for ricin. It is not a typical every day poison but is highly effective and discrete with a several days delay:

Scottsdale PD are not very bright. wrote:

sherlock is not here wrote:

https://www.flotrack.org/articles/5052471-how-david-torrence-assisted-in-the-jama-aden-drug-bust

The article mentions possible acts of violence.

If Jama knocked off DT for snitching, what's he gonna do to Mo for denying his existence?

absolute idiot wrote:

Marathon Fan wrote:

It is fairly possible that someone did not try and drown him. A huge, strong man could have surprised him and choked him seamlessly to death. They say there were no signs of struggle, but how can long does it take to choke a 130-pound guy anyway? Choked him then threw him into the pool.

Great investigation letsrun.

Yeah, that's it. I'm sure the coroner totally would ignore the fact that there was no water in his lungs and call it an accidental drowning anyway. You're a full-on idiot.

And the historical track record / honesty / competency of the Maricopa County sherriffs and the coroner's office is? They probably thought DT was just another "beaner" and give the relative lack of attention in the days and weeks following, didn't bother to pursue a crime they didn't care about and might not be able to solve.

Death threats must be very common in the running community if Gault has quoted Magness right

"I can’t recall who from"

wtf. so he told you but you can't remember. It doesn't hold up. If it was some no-mark John Smith from Alabama then he could at least confirm it wasn't who everyone here wants it to be. 100 % thing is that if it came from the Jama camp, then Magness would remember.

please allow your brains to think, people.

the gentleman wrote:

He did plenty of great work. But you're not helping at all with the end game by not providing the editorial insight that would let the facts speak for themselves and not spread falsities.

What falsity are we spreading? Please name it.

One poster said allowing this thread is the worst of letsrun. I'd say it is exactly what LetsRun is about- letting people discuss and try and figure out what is going on. Let there be scrutiny of what the medical examiner did, what we published etc. What is wrong with letting peoplediscuss their ideas?

meddling kids wrote:

Jon is not well-served by the editorial feeding frenzy Weldon and Robert attempt to create around his solid reporting.

I'm curious what you mean by this? Are you upset w some of decisions made with article or with this thread and how it's presented on homepage?

Johnny Yuma wrote:

absolute idiot wrote:

Yeah, that's it. I'm sure the coroner totally would ignore the fact that there was no water in his lungs and call it an accidental drowning anyway. You're a full-on idiot.

And the historical track record / honesty / competency of the Maricopa County sherriffs and the coroner's office is? They probably thought DT was just another "beaner" and give the relative lack of attention in the days and weeks following, didn't bother to pursue a crime they didn't care about and might not be able to solve.

This thought crossed my mind. Major metro areas like Maricopa County that have a hefty share of violence have bigger fish to fry than this case. I imagine they didn’t dedicate too many resources to this one.

Such a sad story. I didn’t read the downhill mile thread until many years after David posted it, but what an awesome thread. He seemed like a really humble, fun-loving guy. I do hope the article is able to bring some closure to his friends and family.

Two comments on the article Jon, which I thought was very well done:

1. There was so much speculation about suicide, perhaps fueled by the ominous title he gave his last workout, I think it would have been good to address that issue in the article and explain why suicide was ruled out.

2. In addition to the Facebook account I’d be interested in taking a look at the texts and other data on his cell phone. It sounds like investigators recovered his phone so they may have already don’t this and concluded there was nothing of interest. Of course, if that’s true then that tends to support the freak accident theory.

Again, nice job. RIP David Torrence.

LetsRun, thanks a lot for investigating this case. Probably it was just some freak accident, but this story needs to be told.

RIP Big Wave