Commonwealth's Attorney announces no charges in death of John Cashman

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — Back in May, we reported on the case of John Cashman after his family came to us to get answers on his their son's death.

Now we know that the Lynchburg Commonwealth's Attorney will not be pressing charges in Cashman's death.

Bethany Harrison is citing a lack of evidence after reviewing the crime scene, photo, and video evidence.

On April 19th, police found 38-year-old Cashman dead in his apartment.

READ MORE: 'It's police negligence:' Gruesome scene has family questioning LPD's death investigation

Investigators told his family that he died from a medical condition.

But new questions were raised after the family received a video from a neighbor, launching a new investigation into the death.

In that video, you could hear Cashman yelling "what are you doing" and "stop" over and over.

And a man could be seen walking out of Cashman's apartment moments later, wiping his fingerprints off the door handle before leaving.

That man, Steven Church, was found and questioned by police as part of the investigation back in May.

Church claims he stayed with Cashman for about 3 days.

He said Cashman was drunk that day, according to the commonwealth's attorney, and they two got in an argument but it wasn't physical.

Church claims when he left Cashman was drunk but fine.

Church reported that he wiped his fingerprints off the door handle when he left because he had aggravated burglaries on his record and didn't want to be accused of squatting in the apartment.

Church has never been charged.

"Given the pattern of blood loss by Cashman, that there were no other shoe patterns in the blood other than his own, that his medical history and current prescriptions and risk factors were consistent with his death resulting from a fatal medical event, " said Commonwealth's Attorney Bethany Harrison.

ABC 13 spoke with Cashman's sister, Sara Cashman, about the report released by the Lynchburg Commonwealth's Attorney.

"They try to focus on my brother being drunk and incoherent," Cashman said. "I don't know if he had been drinking, quite possibly so but he had no problem getting back up those stairs and into the apartment, didn't show any signs of a person who was about to have a major medical event that would ultimately lead to their death."

Cashman's body was also cremated prior to the investigation, making it more difficult to find out exactly what happened to him.

"None of this would have been given a second look had we not gone to WSET," Cashman said. "They didn't investigate until we reached out and said hey something happened here."

Harrison says, "It is regretful that Mr. Cashman died in such a manner and that his family had to witness the shocking scene. I hope the conclusion of this investigation can give some form of closure to the family as they continue to mourn the loss of their loved one."

"No this doesn't give us closure," Cashman said. "This is a punch in the gut. This is a 'Hey we are not going to bother to investigate this further because we don't want the police department to get in trouble. We don't want the medical examiner's office to get in trouble.'"