Police and coroner say Dupo woman’s death wasn’t suspicious. Her family disagrees.

A metro-east family is claiming that Dupo police and the St. Clair County coroner’s office didn’t thoroughly investigate a 51-year-old woman’s sudden death because she led a troubled life that included domestic battery, drug abuse and health problems.

The authorities reject that characterization, saying there was no evidence to prompt an autopsy or further investigation and good reason to believe the woman died of natural causes, probably a heart attack.

Lori Meyer’s body was found about 2 a.m. Jan. 20 on the floor of a bedroom in her Dupo home. Her son, brother and mother felt the circumstances were suspicious enough that they hired their own pathologist for a private autopsy.

“I think that there’s a devious hand in this somewhere, based on all the variables of the situation,” said son Dustin Meyer, 29, of Waterloo.

Specifically, the family wants to know why authorities didn’t attempt to locate and question a man who was with Lori Meyer when she died, according to her roommate, but left after the roommate called 911 and before police arrived.

The man had been arrested four times and charged in St. Clair County Circuit Court with multiple counts of violating orders of protection and domestic battery against Lori Meyer in the past year. The BND isn’t naming him because he hasn’t been charged with a crime related to her death.

“No one even tried to talk to him,” said Lori Meyer’s brother, Scott Larson, 54, a former Waterloo resident who now lives in California.

Dupo is a small town along Interstate 255, about 12 miles west of Belleville. Police have been called to Lori Meyer’s home at 539 Minnie Ave. many times for a variety of reasons, according to Chief Dennis Plew.

It’s believed the man who had been arrested for domestic battery was at the home when Lori Meyer died, despite an active order of protection against him, Plew said, but that wasn’t unusual because she often let him return after altercations.

Dustin Meyer said Lori Meyer’s roommate kept changing his story about the man’s actions and other details when talking to Dustin Meyer, Dupo police officer Jay Sawyer and Deputy Coroner Tom Boyd on the morning of her death, casting doubt on any information he provided.

The roommate’s statement was only part of the police report, according to Plew.

“I understand the family wants something done because of the situation with her boyfriend,” he said. “But there was just nothing there that the police officers and (deputy coroner) who were on scene could find ... There were no signs of any foul play at all.”

Plew noted that it’s the coroner’s office, not the police department, that determines whether an autopsy is performed.

Scott Larson called St. Clair County Coroner Calvin Dye Sr. and asked him to perform an autopsy on Lori Meyer. That was before Scott Larson and his mother, Dovie Larson, a former Waterloo resident who recently moved to California, flew back to Illinois for the funeral.

Scott Larson maintains that Dye was angrily dismissive and hung up before calling him back and telling him that, if he and others had evidence of a crime, they should go to the police department and file reports.

Dye verified that he turned down Scott Larson’s request for an autopsy on Lori Meyer. He said authorities didn’t consider the death to be suspicious, having found no signs of a struggle at her home or marks on her body to indicate she had been harmed.

“This lady had a history of medical issues (and obesity),” Dye said. “I think she was bedridden also. Just because the family says, ‘We want to do an autopsy,’ we don’t autopsy. If that was the case, we’d be autopsying everybody that comes through.

“We have to draw the line, and we draw the line when we see that there’s not enough evidence there to do an autopsy.”

Dustin Meyer said his mother wasn’t bedridden, but she had health problems, including lupus, that required medication and caused her to sleep a lot. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that can affect joints, skin, kidneys, blood cells, brain, heart and lungs, according to the Mayo Clinic website.

Plew and Dye said Lori Meyer’s roommate told authorities she had complained of chest and back pain on Jan. 19 but refused to follow his suggestion and go to an urgent-care facility.

“That would be totally out of character,” said Dustin Meyer, noting it wasn’t unusual for his mother to call an ambulance for herself if she thought something was wrong.

Dye said he has requested Lori Meyer’s medical records and will determine cause of death after he examines them.

The family has hired a private pathologist from St. Louis to do an autopsy on Lori Meyer on Saturday, before her body is cremated, according to Scott Larson. They went ahead with the funeral on Tuesday without her ashes.

Scott Larson, who works as a chemical engineer, said the autopsy will cost $5,000.

“I feel that something’s not right,” he said. “I know my sister had her issues, but I just want to make sure I do the best that I can to find out what happened, for her son’s sake and my mother’s sake.”

St. Clair County Circuit Court records show that four police visits to Lori Meyer’s home between January and August, 2021, resulted in a man being arrested and charged with eight counts of domestic battery and two counts of violating orders of protection.

The man pleaded guilty to one count for each of the four incidents as part of plea negotiations. He was sentenced to probation, which he violated. He recently spent time in jail.

Dustin Meyer said his mother allowed the man to come back during periods of weakness or loneliness, but she had been trying to distance herself from people who mistreated her and encouraged illegal drug use.

“She was doing really good, starting to get more healthy, and we were seeing her more,” said Dustin Meyer, who works as supervisor for a solar company.

Dustin Meyer found out about his mother’s death about 3 a.m. Jan. 20, when Waterloo police knocked on his door.

Dustin Meyer said he drove to her home, which he described as a “wreck,” with jewelry and other items strewn across the floor. The family later determined that Lori Meyer’s safe, two cellphones and all but one bottle of her many medications were missing.

Dustin Meyer said authorities at the scene on Jan. 20 seemed to have little interest in information that didn’t support their early theory that she had suffered a heart attack.

“They were adamant about it,” he said.

Chief Plew said he was told that Dustin Meyer walked through the home with authorities and agreed that nothing seemed suspicious, and since that morning, no one has given a statement to police to suggest otherwise.

Plew said he understands why a family would be upset in a case like this.

“But the circumstances surrounding this particular incident, when the police were there, there was no obvious criminal activity being committed or criminal activity that had been committed,” he said.

Lori Meyer’s funeral was held Tuesday afternoon at Quernheim Funeral Home in Waterloo. She was born Lori Winchester, according to her obituary. She was preceded in death by her husband, Vincent Meyer, who died when Dustin Meyer was a young boy.