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The public record shows that no cause of death was assigned at pronouncement of death. They don’t do that. You can’t assign a cause of death before the autopsy.

Do you have a source for that? Because I've done some searching for when and how a preliminary cause of death is declared, and I haven't found any really clear explanations. I did find this page by a British pathologist that says, "In "routine natural deaths" in England, 34% of the time the process that was believed to be the cause of death prior to autopsy was completely wrong." And I see that Joan Rivers's daughter has said no to an autopsy, so that cause of death will never be determined--but they've certainly announced one.

Now, I know Fuddy's wasn't a "routine natural death." But you've made a flat assertion that they don't assign even a preliminary cause of death before the autopsy. What's your source for that?

Detective Winfrey never qave any statement of what was thouqht to be the cause of death BEFORE THE AUTOPSY. His statement was AFTER the autopsy had already been done. So your point is moot even if it would have applied to Fuddy.

The fact of the matter is that it was only AFTER Winfrey collected half the clothes that Fuddy’s body would have actuallly had on her and took photoqraphs that he won’t tell us what they’re of... and AFTER the autopsy was done by Harle who wasn’t flown to Molokai and couldn’t have qotten there in time for the autopsy anyway... and in spite of the fact that he supposedly didn’t have jurisdiction to be investiqatinq anythinq anyway... that he said what was believed to be the cause of death at that point: drowninq.

I don’t know if you can see it on what Linda provided, but for the disposition of Winfrey’s supplement note, which is stated riqht after “The preliminary cause of death is Drowninq”, it says, “Pendinq Final Autopsy Report/Toxicoloqy Results”. He’s just waitinq on the final autopsy report, which was not completed until January 24th - nearly 6 weeks after the “death”.

Yes, just research actual autopsy reports. In this instance the MPD records have been published as to when the autopsy was requested, when the pronouncement was made and when the autopsy was conducted. “preliminary cause” did not enter the picture until after the autopsy.

Under a new statistical gathering method called “meaningful use” that been around since 2012, hospitals are required to list “preliminary cause of death” in the electronic medical record. They actually have a specific field for it.

This memo for St Peter’s Hospital in Albany New York explained their use of “preliminary cause of death”

“As part of meaningful use requirements the preliminary cause of death must be captured in the electronic medical record. The preliminary cause of death is the initial diagnosis given at the time of death. This is not the final determination that is documented on the death certificate and does not need to be the same. This does not replace the death certificate documentation.”

https://www.sphcs.org/workfiles/Physicians/MD_memo_MU.pdf