ROME, Ga. (AP)-Police believe the
remains of two fetuses found in a storage
unit were self-aborted by the wife of a
former Indiana women's basketball coach.
That information, released in a
police statement Thursday, was the latest
in the bizarre case that started last week
when authorities in Bay County, Fla.,
received a tip that Sarah Jo Warner Izard
had told friends there that she kept the
remains of two fetuses in a storage shed
in Rome.
Izard is the wife of the late coach Jim
Izard, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot
wound on Feb. 28.
"Sarah Jo Izard told the third party
that she had been pregnant two times,
one time in 2001 and one time in 2002,"
Rome police said in the statement. "Both
of these times she had allegedly selfaborted
these pregnancies and she had
saved the remains of the fetuses."
Authorities are trying to determine if
any laws were broken. No charges have
been filed, and police are unwilling to
speculate on what laws, if any, may have
been violated for storing the fetuses.
The Izards lived in Rome for two
years when Jim Izard coached the Berry
College women's basketball team. He
resigned in January 2005 and moved to
Florida, where he committed suicide last
month.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation
crime lab in Atlanta is performing DNA
analysis and other tests on the fetuses,
which is expected to last at least another
two weeks. Once the lab's final reports are
completed, police will consult with the
Floyd County District Attorney's office to
determine whether any criminal charges
will be brought against Sarah Izard.
The investigation started last week
when Rome police were informed by the
Bay County sheriff's office that Sarah
Izard had told friends that she stored the
remains in a green plastic container inside
a storage unit leased to the late Jim Izard.
On March 9, police searched the storage
unit and found the container, removing
two smaller containers from inside it-
each holding a human fetus in some sort
of liquid, Floyd County Coroner Barry
Henderson said.
Henderson said that the state crime
lab's initial finding was that one fetus was
a male and another was "too disintegrated
to determine gender."
Bay County Sheriff's spokeswoman
Ruth Sasser said her office has interviewed
Sarah Izard about the fetuses, but Sasser
has refused to comment on what was said.
There are no listed telephone numbers
for Sarah Izard or any variations of her name
or her husband's name in the Rosemary
Beach, Fla., area, which is their last known
address and where Jim Izard died.
"We know where she's at and will be
progressing in the investigation," Sasser
said about Sarah Izard.
Indiana University paid Jim Izard to
settle a discrimination lawsuit he filed
against the school four years ago. The 57-
year-old coached at Indiana from 1989
until he was fired in 2000 after a 10-18
season. He eventually went on to coach at
Berry, but was not coaching at the time of
his death.
His lawsuit against Indiana alleged
the school violated federal law when it
fired him as coach after 12 years and
hired Kathi Bennett in March 2000. He also
claimed the university violated equal-pay
law by giving Bennett a five-year contract
that paid her $110,000 her first year. He
had worked on a year-to-year basis, earning
$76,775 his final year.
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