His research has found that in a small percentage of such cases, the victim experiences bruising on the neck and petechiae on the eyeballs that closely mimics injuries otherwise seen as strong indicators of premortem strangulation. Pounder never examined Angara's body (and could not have, since it had been cremated shortly after her death in accordance with Hindu funerary traditions), nor any of the records from the autopsy. County prosecutor Avigliano noted that five medical examiners in Passaic County, who had had access to the body and records, had all agreed that the death was a homicide; but that belief was not unanimous among those who had been part of the initial investigation. The county's chief homicide detective Wood retired in 2006 after having worked on the Angara case for 18 months. By the time of the third anniversary of Angara's death, he had come to believe, in part after considering Pounder's research, that the case was an accident, the result of negligence rather than malice. He said that the plate may have been removed before Angara came to the room where it was. An unnamed plant worker told "The New York Post" that on the day of Angara's death, the state had ordered some testing as a result of the pinkish discoloration. Normally the necessary sample could be collected by machines along the path, but one supervisor was "very old school. We still tested by taking water directly from the tank. And that required removing the plate", the worker said. Wood believes that someone forgot to replace the plate. When Angara came into the dimly lit area, she did not see it and fell in, after which the person who should have replaced the plate did so in a hurry. "I don't think anyone will ever admit to taking that plate off or putting it back on because they know they're going to be held liable for it", Wood told "The Star-Ledger". In 2015 Angara's daughter disputed that theory. Her mother was exceedingly cautious, she said, and it was unlikely that she would have failed to see a dark, wide hole in the floor. At the time, plant workers said they had never seen one of those panels left open, either. "I think you would have to ignore a lot of facts to believe it was an accident", Angara's daughter said. The family has also questioned why it seemed Angara's coworkers failed to notice her absence for the rest of their day. At that time the county prosecutor's office described the case as "open but inactive"; chief assistant prosecutor Latoracca, who was by then in private practice as a criminal defense attorney, said he understood why Wood and some other detectives had come to believe Angara's death was an accident but reiterated that he had faith in the medical conclusions that her death had been caused intentionally.