My condolences and prayers to Chris Kyle’s family. He was a true American hero.
Off Topic:
Butter have you seen this article dated Nov 30, 2012? A little over two months ago?
This the first time I’ve seen it. Seem they are pushing the suicide angle pretty hard. Yeah right. Suicide by arsenic poisoning.
No Answers in Death of Technician Linked to Andrew Breitbart
A right-wing media star drops dead… a coroner’s technician dies weeks later… right-wing blogs erupt! Seven months later, we know the technician died from arsenic poisoning. But who did it? And why? Christine Pelisek reports.
In the early afternoon of April 18, 2012, Michael Cormier, an autopsy technician at the Los Angeles coroner’s office, drove himself to Kaiser Permanente Hospital complaining of heart and stomach pain and diarrhea. The doctors suspected a heart issue or an ulcer and recommended he follow up with his regular physician. Two days later, Cormier asked his wife to call 911. An ambulance took him Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he died several hours later from massive organ failure.
While he was at Providence St. Joseph, an unidentified family member called and recommended that the hospital check Cormier for poison. A screen test found a significant amount of arsenic in Cormier’s system, and the hospital contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. In the early stages of the investigation into Cormier’s death, the police wouldn’t rule out an accident, suicide, or something more nefarious, and the coroner deferred the cause of death pending further toxicology results.
In all, it was not a remarkable set of circumstances, but Cormier’s death made national news when numerous right-wing blogs linked it to the death of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative media juggernaut and Tea Party hero who had died on March 1 at the age of 43.
SNIP
Last Monday, the coroner’s office released its findings on Cormier’s official cause of death: he was indeed killed by “extremely high amounts of arsenic in his system,” said Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. “He had a history of heart problems, but it was the arsenic that killed him.”
Still, neither the coroner nor the police can figure out how so much arsenic got into Cormier in the first place. “We don’t know if it was given to him or self-ingested,” Winter said. “We can’t prove he took it himself, or we can’t prove someone gave it to him.” His autopsy report is scheduled to be released in the next few weeks.
____________________________________________
Remember this old article?
Police Debunk Theories Linking Breitbart, L.A. Coroner Tech Deaths
Cormier was first hospitalized on April 18, complaining of abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Doctors suspected he had a perforated bowel but released him anyway, though not before Cormier told them he thought someone had tried to poison him.
The following day, Cormier’s stomach pain continued, and he was taken by ambulance to St. Joseph’s, where he suffered three heart attacks, according to a law-enforcement source. When an initial toxicology test proved “questionable” and Cormier later died, the hospital notified the coroner’s office.
Thanks. I hadn’t seen that. I’ll read it more fully when I appease my daughter by taking her on a Walmart run. lol
I do remember that the police tried to claim that the doctors said it was a perforated bowel. That didn’t sound like something you’d send somebody home with to me, and somebody linked to information about that being a fatal condition if untreated. Sounded kinda like the police just made up some crap to try to silence those of us who had questions about how this might tie into Breitbart’s autopsy. Why lie about it, if there was no political agenda involved?
Looking at what you excerpted, sounds like they might be pushing the suicide angle, but that doesn’t make sense with him going to the doctor and saying he thought somebody had tried to poison him.
And it seems like the dates are different now than originally claimed. Earlier it was claimed that he first went to the hospital the day before he died. Now they’re saying 2 days before he died. They’re also now saying that they started looking into the arsenic angle when a family member said they should check him for poisoning, but that wasn’t mentioned before; what was mentioned before was that HE said he should be checked for arsenic poisoning. Maybe they consider him a “relative” of himself?
The whole dang system is so corrupt there’s nobody we can really believe. That’s what it seems like, moreso each day.
I better go before my daughter shoots me. lol
Mark post 288 for later.
What that detective claimed doesn’t really fit with what’s at http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/dr-james-c-whorton-and-the-arsenic-century/
The arsenic that is used for poisoning is a white odorless tasteless powder that is easily mistaken for flour or sugar. Within 30-60 minutes of ingesting it, the target has sharp burning in the esophagus and stomach, followed by intense diarrhea that lasts for hours. Because the onset of intense symptoms within an hour of ingestion makes it easy to trace who could have done the poisoning, in days past more gradual poisonings were done and the death occurred over weeks.
Since Cormier went to the hospital in the early afternoon with diarrhea and such and believed he had been poisoned, it seems likely that somebody put something in his lunch, in an amount that was geared toward having an immediate violent reaction without worries of anybody figuring out who did it. Maybe because they knew the police wouldn’t check it out.
If he ate lunch at work it was somebody who was there at the coroner’s office at the time, and it should not have been difficult for the police to start pinpointing suspects already the day that he died, based upon the time he felt the burning that he would have reported to the doctor at the hospital the first day. He went to a hospital closer to home the day he died. Seems like he must not have been at home when he decided to go to the hospital when the symptoms came initially, so the poisoning probably happened at work, or wherever he ate lunch that day. Or if he was poisoned by contact or inhalation it would have happened at the office.
I remember reading that the workers at that office were upset that security was so bad there - that it would not be hard for somebody to get in there and do something bad. Which was worrisome to them because they deal with crime victims and there would be people who were interested in revenge, scaring off the coroner, or compromising the evidence.
I can’t see a doctor in an emergency room having a medical-type guy who works at the morgue come in with sudden-onset symptoms like that, saying he thought he was poisoned and showing classic symptoms of poisoning, and sending him away without doing any tests, just telling him to see his regular doctor.
We know that between the doctor and the police, they had “debunked” the Breitbart connection, partially by coming up with a fake story about that first doctor suspecting a perforated bowel when Cormier initially came in. So one or both of them are lying to the public.
Putting all that together, it seems like somebody could well have poisoned Cormier either at his office or wherever he ate 2 days before the Breitbart autopsy came out, knowing that the symptoms would come on suddenly while he was at work and not worried about anybody finding out who did it. The doctor who first saw him seems negligent in ignoring his suspicions which matched his symptoms, especially knowing that he worked in a profession where there could easily be a motive for poisoning. When he died, the police could have had immediate leads because the symptoms show up so soon after ingestion, pinpointing a specific time for the poisoning. We know they immediately suspected arsenic, probably because of a preliminary toxicology test. They checked his home and even now it seems like they would like to make his wife look suspect. But finding out when and where he had eaten would be the critical question - yet it seems like they must not have pursued that.
Instead, when people questioned the possible connection to Breitbart’s autopsy, they “debunked” the connection by feeding the public false information trying to make people think it WASN’T arsenic after all. Now they’re trying to make it look like suicide - even though he had gone to the hospital reporting that he thought somebody had poisoned him.
Smokeyblue, this honestly does NOT look good to me. It looks to me like somebody had the help of the police in doing a blatant poisoning - so a message would be heard loud and clear in that office - without the logical clues ever being followed up on to catch the killer. And then followed up by the police lying about what really happened.
That this article came out shortly after the November election, saying that the toxicology reports had come back just a couple weeks earlier... also stinks to high heaven. An article published in May of 2012 said they expected the complete toxicology results in a couple weeks. Not 6 months later.
Yeah, this one reeks.
Ping
To #288 and #294
Article on autopsy of Michael Cormier (Breitbart-autopsy technician). Arsenic poisoning.
Placemark to your comment.