Civil rights leaders are putting a spotlight on the Katherine Morris Death Reclassification Act, which requires police to reopen investigations where the cause or manner of death has changed to undetermined or homicide.

The plea follows the reclassification of at least 36 deaths in police custody in Maryland to homicides after an audit revealed pro-police and racial biases by Maryland's former chief medical examiner , David Fowler.

A mother's persistence

Marguerite Morris has long believed her daughter Katherine's death was suspicious .

Police found Katherine in a parking lot near Arundel Mills in 2012 with lit charcoal grills in her car.

Authorities initially said she died of suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning .

Her mother has been fighting since then to get police to take another look at her daughter's case and list it with other unsolved cases on their website.

Morris even worked to successfully pass legislation in 2024 to mandate police reopen investigations in cases where the cause and manner of death have been changed to undetermined or homicide.

The law also gives families 180 days to appeal decisions .

"We want transparency. We want accountability," Morris said. "We want someone who's going to look at it with clean eyes and clear eyes and get back to us with a response."

She is still in a legal battle over her daughter's case.

"What we're asking for is to look at how certain cases were handled to see if they rise to obstruction of justice," Morris said at a news conference Tuesday.

Wide-ranging impact

The law Morris helped pass, HB969, potentially impacts 36 autopsies that were recently reclassified as homicides after an audit of Maryland deaths in police custody.

The audit was spurred by former chief medical examiner David Fowler's testimony on behalf of the officer convicted of killing George Floyd.

Fowler has not returned WJZ's calls and emails for comment.

"We now need clarification as to how many of those cases can be triggered by Katherine's Law because technically it would fall under it, and those families need to know today that they do have the right to look into how that law can be activated in their cases," Morris said.

"For us, we may have moved on, but for these families, time stopped," she said. "With unanswered questions, it is intolerable. …I can only imagine the burdens these families carry every single day."

The Maryland attorney general is currently investigating those deaths impacted by the audit and has promised reviews of each one, but he acknowledged that may not lead to any new charges.

"We hope and pray this never happens to you, but if it does, you want all your rights to pursue the truth in the death of your loved one," said Pastor Stephen Andrew Tillett, from the Asbury Broadneck UMC in Annapolis.

Hanging death

The family of Keith Warren, a 19-year-old found hanging from a tree in Montgomery County in 1986, also hopes to get fresh eyes on his case.

His sister joined Morris at the news conference Tuesday and said her brother's death was reclassified from suicide to undetermined in 2024, but that is not enough.

"My mother—the anniversary of her death was yesterday—she went to her early grave fighting for justice for her only son. All we've asked is for Montgomery County, Maryland, to show how he put himself in this tree," Sherri Warren said.

You can read more about her brother's case here .

WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren came to WJZ in the spring of 2004. Solid reporting credentials and a reputation for breaking important news stories have characterized Mike's work. Mike holds a B.S. degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and grew up partly in both Chicago and Louisiana.