WILMINGTON – A new legal battle has arisen against the City of Wilmington, Wilmington Police Department and some of its officers in what one local man believes resulted from a negligent investigation in the wake of his son’s death.
READ MORE: Judge dismisses WPD wrongful death complaint regarding Val D’Auvray investigation
Joseph Val D’Auvray II is the father of Joseph Valentine Flor D’Auvray III, who died in what WPD ruled an accidental death on April 18, 2022. D’Auvray filed a civil lawsuit against the government entities and WPD officers this week. Defendants include City of Wilmington, Wilmington Police Department and officers William Ostrosky and Jameson Hutchins, as well as “unknown employees of WPD.” D’Auvray said he listed unknown employees as defendants because it is unclear who else might have been involved in the handling of his son’s case.
The lawsuit alleges WPD’s negligence and misconduct led to Joseph Valentine Flor D’Auvray III’s death and that the city, its police department, and individual officers should be held accountable. It states the departments exhibited “willful, wanton and reckless” behaviors “in total disregard of the rights” of D’Auvray and his son and that the facts in the case were “corrupt, malicious, and/or outside of or beyond the scope of Defendants’ duties.” The suit holds the city responsible in that officers are public employees for Wilmington government.
D’Auvray seeks compensation exceeding $25,000 for pain and suffering over the loss of his son, reasonable funeral expenses, and punitive damages.
“I mean, forget pain and suffering, it’s more like anger,” D’Auvray told Port City Daily on a call Thursday. “I want some sort of recourse for what has been done, what I’ve been put through, what my family has been put through, what they did to how my son was treated. I feel like his civil liberties were violated.”
His son, known as “Val,” was discovered dead outside the former TRU Colors Brewing on Greenfield Street on April 18, 2022. The Wilmington Police Department ruled the death accidental four months later, stating he fell from the building’s roof.
Val suffered from alcoholism and substance-use disorder for most of his adult life. He was in an outpatient program at the nonprofit facility Coastal Horizons, receiving medication-assisted treatment. After completing a six-week hospital detox and evaluation, Val was supposed to move to the Hope Recuperative Care facility, but left on April 2, 2022.
D’Auvray told PCD a nurse at the facility instructed Val to contact his father when he departed, but Val responded: “I have to figure this out for once on my own.”
After 10 days without hearing from Val, his father filed a missing person’s report to WPD on April 12, 2022.
Five days later, Val was stopped by police in a trespassing incident and claimed he felt threatened and was being chased. The police officers let him go and told him if they were called back to the property they would arrest him. They ran his name through the National Crime Information Center database, which would list missing persons and therefore Val if he were on it. But his father learned the report was never filed.
“Why wasn’t the missing person’s filed and uploaded?” D’Auvray questioned.
He is confident he would have been contacted if the officers ran Val’s license in the system and relayed to his son a missing person’s report had been put out on his whereabouts.
“Knowing my son, we were very close,” D’Auvray said. “He was very close to his brothers and I know he would have responded; he always has.”
Cpl. Ostrosky was responsible for filing the missing person’s report. D’Auvray submitted complaints to WPD internal affairs on both Ostrosky and Det. Hutchins. Hutchins was the lead detective on Val’s case and D’Auvray said he provided him with false information regarding his son’s death.
The investigation found that complaints for failing to file the missing person’s report against Ostrosky were “sustained” — meaning they were true. While WPD’s policy outlines disciplinary measures for varying levels of misconduct — from minor “performance issues” to severe “illegal conduct” — it doesn’t explicitly address the failure to file a missing person report, leaving its severity and potential consequences ambiguous.
The investigation into Hutchins, performed by Lt. S. Boucher, also found complaints of on-duty performance to be sustained, but he was “exonerated for truthfulness” — meaning the complaints were true but his actions were justified, lawful, and proper.
D’Auvray obtained body camera footage through the courts in July of 2022, showing the rundown of events from the day before Val’s death, when officers found him trespassing Accordius Health of Wilmington. A 911 call from a nurse at the assisted living facility came in around 3 a.m. and D’Auvray said police told him Val was attempting to “break in” to the facility, which ended up being false. In the body camera footage, staff members at the facility claimed an African-American man was attempting to break into the building, not Val.
In the footage, Val is distressed but cooperative with police. He told officers he was seeking refuge in a well-lit area because he was being chased by someone with a baseball bat.
“I don’t know why they’re chasing me,” Val told officers in the footage. “I don’t know if it has something to do with one of my friends. I look like some other people; they could think I’m someone else.”
D’Auvray was initially told by Hutchins that his son had no clothes on, except for a pair of pants, and was uncooperative with officers. Upon review of the body camera footage, this proved to be false.
“Seeing that just proved to me that I’ve been told nothing but lies. I was shocked,” D’Auvray said. “It’s hypothetical, but I know that if, in fact, the 911 had gone out and [the missing person’s report] was properly uploaded, that it would have saved my son’s life.”
D’Auvray has listed 18 actions in the lawsuit he thinks the WPD failed to follow in his son’s case and death investigation, including failure to file the missing person’s report and inform law enforcement to be on the lookout for Val, as well as transmitting a report to the national database; inaccurately representing police’s encounter with Val; providing false information and statements regarding Val’s demeanor, appearance and state, saying he was delusional and irrational; failure to properly investigate Val’s death and attempt to hide errors both before and after death; falsely stating an autopsy would be performed, which didn’t happen until D’Auvray insisted weeks later; and more.
A general surgery physician assistant viewed Val’s body a little over an hour after the reported time of death. He determined the cause as a blunt force head injury from falling off the roof or fence and stated there was “no obvious sign of foul play or suicide.”
Eighteen days later, forensic pathologist Dr. Jeffrey Falls performed an autopsy and made a similar determination. He noted the finding was based on the examination and “circumstances surrounding the death, as currently understood.”
There are some discrepancies between the reports, such as additional injuries noted throughout Val’s body in the autopsy. D’Auvray said the examiners weren’t provided important context — including footage of Val saying he was being chased and feared for his safety the night before his death and testimonies from persons of interest. He told Port City Daily both examiners said other causes are possible.
This is D’Auvray’s second legal action against WPD; he filed a wrongful death complaint against the agency in February of 2024. Superior Court Judge Frank Jones dismissed the case without prejudice in May but emphasized his decision was based on legal deficiencies rather than the merit of D’Auvray’s allegations. The judge determined D’Auvray would need to include a more specific form of relief and address legal defenses related to governmental immunity in future filings.
“The ‘without prejudice,’ sir, means that under appropriate circumstances you may refile,” Jones told D’Auvray at the hearing. “Without giving you legal advice, please understand the failure to cure defects may result in a dismissal that would operate as a final disposition.”
WPD legal counsel Trey Ferguson invoked governmental immunity, which protects government agencies from liability in suits related to employees working in an official capacity. The doctrine has exceptions, such as proof an officer acted with malice, but WPD argued the complaint didn’t contain an argument to override the law.
“Based on claims filed, there’s no allegations about wavering immunity or anything about immunity, and so it’s appropriate to dismiss,” Ferguson said.
D’Auvray’s attorney, Finesse Crouch of Durham-based Couch and Associates PC, addressed legal deficiencies Jones identified in the dismissed complaint. Unlike D’Auvray’s previous filing, the new complaint includes a specific form of relief and arguments to challenge defendants’ use of governmental immunity.
“Public officials may be liable for negligence if their actions were corrupt, malicious, or if they acted outside of or beyond the scope of their duties,” Crouch wrote. “One acts with malice when he wantonly does that which a man of reasonable intelligence would know to be contrary to his duty and which he intends to be prejudicial or injurious to another.”
Port City Daily reached out to the firm for further comment on the lawsuit, but did not hear back by press.
City of Wilmington and the Wilmington Police Department also were contacted for comment. City representatives didn’t respond by press, but WPD did, noting: “WPD does not comment on any pending litigation.”
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