Free Republic

Dr. Bass became head of the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee. There dead bodies are studied, rates of decay and other nasty stuff, to help solve crimes, identify the long dead or just so people like myself can read some really interesting stuff about it. Not for the squeamish.

It was some years that I sat at the bar of a rural pub in southeastern England; a night in mid-winter when it was dark both outside and within, culling through piles of coins I had laid on the bar. Decimalization of British currency had occurred some years before, but the old one-shilling and two-shilling (12 pence and 24 pence, respectively) coins were still monetized, serving as 5 pence and 10 pence pieces under the new system. I was looking for those, and much to my gratification, finding many of them; even silver ones, even a few pieces dating back...

The Fresno County District Attorney's Office filed charges on Friday against a deputy coroner, alleging that he stole property from at least one dead person. Joe Tiger is accused of grand theft and embezzlement in an incident that allegedly took place last March.

PITTSBURGH - Celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht used government employees as secretaries, gofers and chauffeurs for himself and his private business while working as Allegheny County's medical examiner and coroner, prosecutors said Monday at the start of Wecht's trial. Wecht, 76, is charged with 41 counts, including wire fraud, mail fraud and theft. He has denied wrongdoing, and his attorneys have maintained that the charges are politically motivated. "In plain English, what he did was he stole, and he did it for the same reasons people have stolen for thousands of years: so he could make more money and because he...

BELLEVILLE, Ill. - A baby sitter charged with murder clubbed a pregnant woman in the head repeatedly with a table leg, then cut her fetus from the womb in a bathtub where she later drowned the victim's three young children, an investigator testified Wednesday. The grisly details in the September slayings of Jimella Tunstall and her family were revealed at a hearing where a coroner's jury, after a few minutes of deliberations, concluded the deaths were homicides. Tiffany Hall, 24, has been charged with first-degree murder and faces a possible death sentence in the death of Tunstall and with intentional...

OXFORD (Reuters) - One of Britain's most experienced journalists was unlawfully killed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, a British inquest into his death ruled on Friday, prompting calls for the perpetrators to be tried for war crimes. Veteran war correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, who worked for British television company ITN, was killed in March 2003 in southern Iraq as he reported from the front line during the first few days of the U.S.-led invasion. "He was fired on by American soldiers as a minibus carried wounded people away," Coroner Andrew Walker said at the conclusion of the inquest, which U.S....

OXFORD, England - A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war. Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would ask the attorney general to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for the death of Terry Lloyd, 50, a veteran reporter for the British television network ITN.

OXFORD, England -- A coroner ruled Friday that U.S. forces unlawfully killed a British television journalist in the opening days of the Iraq war. Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would ask the attorney general to take steps to bring to justice those responsible for the death of Terry Lloyd, 50, a veteran reporter for the British television network ITN. Witnesses testified during the weeklong inquest that Lloyd - who was driving with fellow ITN reporters from Kuwait toward Basra, Iraq - was shot in the back by Iraqi troops who overtook his car, then died after U.S. fire hit...

OXFORD (Reuters) - One of Britain's most experienced journalists was unlawfully killed by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, a British inquest into his death ruled on Friday, prompting calls for the perpetrators to be tried for war crimes. Veteran war correspondent Terry Lloyd, 50, who worked for British television company ITN, was killed in March 2003 in southern Iraq as he reported from the front line during the first few days of the U.S.-led invasion. "He was fired on by American soldiers as a minibus carried wounded people away," Coroner Andrew Walker said at the conclusion of the inquest, which U.S....

The Maricopa County Medical Examiner jurisdiction covers approximately 9,000 square miles of Phoenix and surrounding cities. We have created this site to provide information about these cases to the public. We hope that by making this information accessible to friends and families of missing persons, we can obtain leads to properly identify these decedents. We are providing identifying characteristics for each individual, as well as photographs or sketches when available. These photos may include their faces, tattoos, and/or their belongings. Please review our cases and if you recognize anyone, let us know. You may remain anonymous. SOME OF THE CONTENT...

HOURS after boarding the luxury cruise that would result in her death, Dianne Brimble's friend warned her of a group of men who had been ogling female passengers, a Sydney inquest was told today. The next morning, Ms Brimble, 42, was found dead in a cabin belonging to some of those same men. Police allege she had been given a lethal dose of the date rape drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate before being sexually assaulted. The inquest was told Ms Brimble had been ecstatic, setting out on the "holiday of a lifetime" with family and friends on the P&O liner Pacific Sky on...

For the first time in Santa Clara County, the coroner's office has listed the use of Tasers by police officers as one of the factors causing a person's death. The main cause of Jose Angel Rios' death late last year was heart failure during his cocaine-fueled battle against San Jose police officers, according to an autopsy obtained Friday by the Mercury News. The 38-year-old's obesity and heart disease caused by cocaine use were also listed as causes. The manner of death -- accidental, homicide, suicide, etc. -- was ``undetermined.'' Dr. Christopher Happy also concluded a ``contributory cause of death'' was...

Dr. Cyril Wecht, the Allegheny County coroner, is as brilliant as he is bombastic. And he is very brilliant. I genuinely like him, but sometimes he infuriates all of us. His dismissive comments about Christians a few days ago border on religious bigotry. He disagrees. Wecht had been hired by the defense as a consultant in the Scott Peterson murder trial. He did his own autopsy on Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Connor. Peterson, as stone cold a murderer as there is, killed his pregnant wife and dumped the body in the San Francisco Bay, while having an affair,...

On Tuesday, he jumped on the city coroner's labeling the death of Alberta Spruill - who suffered a heart attack following the mistaken no-knock raid by the NYPD - a "homicide." Now, this is a technical term: It means that an examiner has determined that the death was caused by another person. The term is most assuredly not synonymous with murder - which, as with manslaughter, is a legal term applied after an analysis of a death determines that a crime has been committed. Sharpton, as per usual, has gone right over the top: Pouncing on the medical examiner's word...

This is an excerpted post...  Link to full article is posted at the bottom of these excerpts.Mother of Suspect Killed in Fiery Standoff Files ClaimCourts: She says sheriff's deputies used excessive force on her son, who fatally shot an officer. By CAITLIN LIU TIMES STAFF WRITER April 10 2002 The mother of James Allen Beck, the former Arcadia police officer who died in a fiery shootout in Stevenson Ranch last year, has filed a wrongful-death claim against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, lawyers said Tuesday... ..."In order to cover up the wrongful death of James Beck, deputy sheriffs and...