Coroner's Casebook | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

in Hollywood is as deadly as it seems to be and someone just walked away with a million dollar insurance benefit now the forensics must prove that murder is part of the package this officer kills his wife in a three car accident, but the Investigators believe he may have been taken to an asylum, a simple farmer is accused of murdering his brother and a town rallies to his defense, as does forensic science. They stare death in the face every day of their lives, coming from fragments of bone, drops of blood, and splinters of tissue that they can reconstruct. the shattered circumstances that bring the deceased into their lives everyone has a story to tell and each one is a page and the

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's case is broken when someone dies his work begins the

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and criminalists know that each type of death leaves its mark Subtle and they know it murder when they see it Early on the morning of April 16, 1988, the Glendale, California 911 dispatcher received a call about a man in cardiac arrest.

Paul was placed by dr. Richard Boggs, a respected neurologist, when paramedics arrived at his office, explained that the man was one of his patients named Gene Henson, who had a history of heart problems. The victim had credit cards in Hanson's name before calling 911. He said he did everything he could to revive his patient, but nothing worked. Gene Henson was pronounced dead at the scene at the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. A routine autopsy was performed on the body. The office confiscated 200 bodies each day and this was just another face in the crowd that saw no immediate cause of death.

With the exception of some marks on the heart, the coroner referred the diagnosis to the victim's personal physician, Dr. Boggs Henson's cause of death was listed as heart failure due to a dangerous heart condition. The body was handed over to John Hawkins' partner Vincent and his partner in his successful sportswear business. He flew to California from Ohio to claim the remains and had them cremated. Regarding Hanson's latest application, Hawkins, as the sole beneficiary of his partner, received the first million of Hanson's $1.5 million life insurance policy. Usually that would be the end of a story, but this story was just beginning five months after the death of an insurance agent. closing Hanson's file when he noticed something strange, the base on Hanson's autopsy photo did not look like the photo provided by the Department of Motor Vehicles for verification, he requested that he compare the fingerprint on file at the DMV with the one on the autopsy no.

There is no doubt that they were two different men and that raised two vital questions: where was the real Hansen and who was the dead man. The agent had discovered something much more serious than insurance fraud. Although they are located next to each other. The difference between Glendale. California and North Hollywood are like night and day, but this is where Glendale police went to solve the mystery of the dead man who wasn't Gene Hanson. Police determined from fingerprints and missing persons reports that the man was actually an accountant named Ellis Greene. He was last seen leaving a bar in North Hollywood on April 15.

The next day he was pronounced dead under a false name in Dr. Boggs' office. Sergeant John Perkins of the Glendale police tried to clarify what happened. A photograph of Ellis Greene's body that was depicted in At the Doctor's Office was taken to his elderly aunt and shown that photo. She identified it as Ellis Green, her nephew. Now we knew we had the real body, the real name, but we still didn't have an exact or proximate cause. of death, proving how Greene died was only half the task before him. The researchers also had to prove that the real Hanson gene was still alive.

Months had passed, but Henson was alive. He had a huge advantage in finding a hiding place. John Hawkins, his partner. In this elaborate insurance scam he had also disappeared along with $1 million of insurance money. Police focused on the last person who saw the victim alive. Boggs police visited him to find out about the dead man in his office. Boggs told them he had been a patient for years. Boggs knew him only as Melvin Eugene Henson or Gen. He had no reason to suspect that he was a fake name. In response to a search warrant, he handed over his patient files, Sergeant Perkins examined them, it was possible that Dr.

Boggs was telling the truth. Gene Hanson's records show that he had been repeatedly warned about his condition but he refused to follow the doctor's orders, but it was also possible that dr. Boggs was involved in this elaborate insurance scam and the records themselves were from dr. Perkins pulled out three EKG strips several months apart and wondered if they really demonstrated the life-threatening heart condition that supposedly killed Greene. He asked a cardiologist to analyze the EKGs. The cardiologist told him that they indicated a common mild condition that was not fatal. Perkins was more suspicious than ever that dr.

Boggs had intentionally falsified the records, but he could not prove it and later discovered that the answer was in the electrocardiogram strips, simple enough for even a layman to understand. One night, I was sitting at my desk looking at these EKG strips and I was reviewing them and I was looking at it and suddenly it became very obvious that one was completely clean, one had a red tint down the middle of the length of the ECG strip. and the other had a

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tint across the entire length of the strip. the ECG strip and suddenly you think, wait a minute, they're all connected, so I put them on the desk and put them in a and sure enough, the fractures matched up perfectly, the red marks marking the end of the roll formed a line Continuous darkening along two of the three strips allowed Perkins to put them in sequential order, but when he did, the dates Bob wrote on the back of the strips were out of order and months apart, the ECG strips of Addie were fabricated while Perkins was making his discovery, the case was moving forward.

On a different front they were tracking Ellis Greene's credit card purchases. The dead man's cards were still active and in use. Investigators weren't sure who was using them but they hoped it was the real Hanson gene. They tracked the card. to a bungalow in Key West, Florida, the rental agent confirmed that the tenant was a man named Ellis Greene, who had moved out weeks before and that the apartment had not been rented since

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are looking for clues that could reveal the identity of the former occupant on a glass of In a cabinet they found a fingerprint that matched that of Gene Hanson.

Now they had proof that he was alive. Then, in January 1989, nine months after his reported death. Gene Henson, traveling under another assumed name, was detained at the Dallas Fort Worth airport upon returning from Mexico. He had been acting eccentrically enough that customs agents stopped him and inspected his suitcases, finding $14,000 in cash that he did not declare, thus violating the law. They also found the IDs of 13 people, including the two dead men of Ellis Greene and Dr. Boggs in his office. Here was evidence that he had switched identities with the victim and had pocketed some of his own death benefits.

He was arrested with Gene Hanson captured and the incriminating EKG strips. The police had enough to arrest Bob and they knew they had him for conspiracy to commit insurance. fraud, in fact, they discovered evidence that he and Hanson had made some fraudulent claims in the past. The two, along with John Hawkins, staged car accidents to get insurance money. Boggs was the doctor who approved his medical claims, but was there enough evidence to prove that Boggs actually murdered Ellis Greene as part of the conspiracy without a body? They didn't seem to have much foundation. Boggs stated that they originally hoped to do so.

Stealing a body from the morgue was impossible, so in a gruesome coincidence the conspirators said they stumbled upon Ellis Greene's body shortly after his death. Despite how improbable the story sounded, Bob challenged the prosecution to prove that the Glendale Police Sergeant John Perkins had to somehow convert an elaborate insurance policy. Hanson, a witness to the murder scam, then faked his own death and Richard Boggs, the compliant doctor, was already in custody. Perkins was eager to put all the pieces together and finish it, but there was still no sign of John Hawkins, the beneficiary who ran away with a million. -insurance payment in dollars and yet investigators lacked evidence to prove what they strongly suspected: that Dr.

Boggs murdered Ellis Greene to pass him off as Gene Hanson. We really needed someone who could examine all the evidence we had, being the autopsy. Report some of the tissues, there was some stomach contents that were collected at the time of the autopsy and examined them from an independent view to look at crime scene photos to give us some indication that this person did not die of natural causes and that is. when we brought dr. Michael baden michael body is the executive director of the new york state police forensic sciences unit. He is also an expert in the nuances that death leaves on the body.

He has served on the congressional committees that investigated the deaths of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. . In the case of Ellis Greene, Baden had slides of his heart, lung and liver tissue, as well as photographs of the victim that were taken shortly after death. From this evidence, Baden was able to determine two facts with confidence: one of which was that Greene did not have a fatal heart condition. skin that showed no other markings was blue at the time of death, suggesting lack of oxygen from these two events. Baden came to a single conclusion.

Greene was choked except with a telltale blue color in the absence of a struggle. Asphyxiation leaves no marks. His diagnosis comes from elimination. all other possible causes of death is a diagnosis of exclusion a gunshot wound we do not need a diagnosis of exclusion because we find a hole in the body a stab wound or a blow from a baseball bat or we leave marks on the body that we can It's seen at autopsy, but if you put something over the nose and mouth that causes a person to die because they can't breathe, and then you remove an object, hand, or pillow at autopsy, there's no specific finding that says that. he was asphyxiated, the evidence was enough to convince the jury that the three men had planned the crime together and that dr.

Boggs the healer was dr. Boggs, a murderer, these three individuals were no strangers to crime, they had gotten involved probably four years before this particular murder and had devised different ways to commit insurance fraud and the planet they evolved on was that someone had to die, that person they agreed would be Gene Hanson and the only way they could accomplish this was with a doctor and that doctor was dr. Boggs Police believe Boggs picked up Ellis Green at a bar, the last place he was seen, and he bought him some drinks to make him more compliant.

The victim's blood alcohol content was well above the legal limit and then the bodies lured him to his office just in case. the victim was still sober enough to defend himself. Boggs may have trained him with a stun gun and then the victim was asphyxiated without resistance. Perkins believes the forensic pathologist's determination of murder made this case winnable. Bonds' testimony in this particular case I think was that in the last inning you are down two and the bases are loaded and dr. Biden came in and basically gave us a home run in 1990. Richard Boggs was convicted of first degree murder and fraud.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It took three years and a worldwide manhunt before police caught John Hawkins. the island of Sardinia in 1995 well, he and Melvin Eugene Henson were convicted of fraud, grand larceny and conspiracy to commit murder. Henson was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Hawkins received 25 years to life in prison. The medical examiner's work undermined the murderous conspiracy of Gene Hanson and his cohorts, but whether a crime is ingenious or devilishly simple, the forensic methods needed to solve it are equally complex on the rainy night of November 27, 1992, shortly after from 9:30 p.m.

Passing motorists reported what appeared to be an accident on Hawaii's volcanic highway. Police arrived to find a man facing the wrong way, apparently after turning, the responding officer recognized the owner of the gang as Ken Matheson, a sergeant in the police force. Ken was badly shaken. It was a lot of work for his wife, Yvonne. He could havecared for in the back of the truck until help arrived. He had lost a lot of blood by a strange coincidence. Yvonne Matheson was a nurse, and she helped deliver responding officers to her first child weeks before paramedics transferred her to the ambulance. to rush her to the Hilo hospital, where she became the scene of her death when Ken Matheson's fellow officers heard about the incident on the police radio and went to see him at the hospital.

Matheson told one of his colleagues that his wife's death was a terrible accident. She was driving the truck when they started fighting. Things escalated and they became angry beyond all reason. Yvonne jumped out of the open window of the truck. moving and then said he slipped to drive the vehicle and then backed up to look for his wife and that's when he ran over her, Yvonne and Ken Matheson and what they divorced, but then decided to give their marriage a second chance, it seemed to be running this time, more or less, the usual difficult times, then this tragedy destroyed everything, according to Hilo police, any accident resulting in death.

This misdemeanor is considered negligent homicide. Matheson could expect a maximum fine of $1,000 and at least a year in jail. He would be fined $100 or sentenced to 100 hours of community service. In any case, he could keep his badge. did not protest the charges as in any sudden death a

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investigation would have to be carried out, it was a formality, Yvonne Matheson's death was unfortunate and tragic but the police had no reason to doubt and the story while the investigation was underway, Matheson stayed. on active duty with the police force but After inspecting the accident scene, Hawaii County police noticed some minor inconsistencies between the evidence on the road and Matheson's story.

At first it seemed like they weren't worth mentioning each year, tourists flocked to Hawaii to escape the worries of their daily lives: the sun, the waves, and the primeval fire. The beauty of the volcanoes exerts its cleansing influence on the inhabitants of Hawaii. Life in Paradise continues as anywhere else. Crimes are committed. Accidents occur. Researchers have to determine which is which. Hilo traffic investigators searched the area where Sergeant Ken Matheson's wife was lost. life they found relatively little blood on the road compared to what was found in the van, although it was a bit peculiar, they attributed it to the rain and the fact that Ken Matheson had put his dying wife in the van after the hit in the lot confiscated by the police the truck had its own story to tell it was a routine procedure for a vehicle involved in a fatal accident that undergoes a mechanical inspection denies any future defense claims for defective equipment the police also had to To make sure the truck was safe to drive before they were able to deliver it to Matheson, due to the nature of this accident, the undercarriage was thoroughly inspected.

Hawaii County police traffic investigator Martin Eleazar was surprised by the relative lack of damage he found there, however, when he finished inspecting the exterior, he purchased the interior of the truck. his interest I looked inside from the outside and I could see blood stains blood stains on the driver's side window blood stains on the plastic cover of the panel area in front of the steering wheel blood stains above there was a large concentration of blood and hair in that bolt there was no reason for there to be blood on the driver's side of the vehicle eleazar needed a closer look but to search inside the truck a warrant was needed yes, Deputy Attorney General Hertz pony to request one the warrant came just in time three months has passed since the incident, according to Spohn, their main test almost slipped out of their hands.

You perform a mechanical inspection and once all the mechanical inspections and search warrants are completed you return the truck to the owner and in this case the truck was authorized to be returned to the owner fortunately Matheson had not picked it up yet the truck was insured the release authorization was canceled a search warrant was issued for the inside of the gang now spawn had to face the sad possibility that Sergeant Matheson's story could be a lie and although they still had the van, another vital piece of evidence was lost forever, we decided that this case was possibly more than a negligent homicide and so we decided that we should probably have a forensic pathologist do an autopsy on this case, however, at that time we found that the body had been cremated.

An autopsy had been performed on Yvonne Matheson's body three days after her death on Hawaii Island. The coroner is also the chief of police. The pathologist from a nearby hospital is hired as a consultant. The pathologist was told the death was accidental. But a pathologist specializes in natural causes of death, such as diseases, yet he was able to say that the victim's injuries did not match Ken Matheson's account. The pathologist noted injuries to the victim's head, arms and hands that were not consistent with being hit or falling from the vehicle, but the interpretation of these injuries was outside the scope of the consultant pathologists' training.

It was actually a job for a forensic pathologist who specializes in deaths from unnatural causes, still baffled by his findings, the pathologist was sure to photograph every aspect of the victim and take tissue samples now that the victim had been cremated. was all that was left a tragic accident the case was now getting ugly his phone he knew there were enough reasons to open a homicide investigation but without a body there might not be enough evidence to solve it, the pathologists' original photos and the evidence of the truck would have to be enough. He braced himself for the inevitable public outcry.

In some ways, it's a no-win situation if you investigate and find out that the police officer is innocent and you announce that everyone says "well, he swept it under the rug because this is a police officer" and if you investigate the case and discovers that the officer is guilty and accuses him, everyone says that he is only accusing him because he is kowtowing. to public pressure and is actually innocent, six months into the investigation, widespread criticism forced Sergeant Ken Mathis and his superiors to place him on administrative duty while he remained a suspect, press coverage brought to light an intriguing incident that a witness read about the case in the Documents told investigators that on the night of the crash he stopped to help shortly after 9 p.m. because he stopped a man, possibly Ken Matheson got out of the back of the truck and shined a flashlight in his eyes, he told the Samaritan that no one was hurt.

They had already called the police and we fired him. Investigators now suspect that perhaps the passerby interrupted. crime in progress they just had to prove it in Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Kurt Spohn was faced with the unfortunate task of investigating Sergeant Ken Matheson for murder to discover more about the blood spatter in the driver's area of ​​Matheson's pickup truck. He asked a colleague to locate the best blood spatter expert in the country, a couple of days later he told me it was someone named Dr. Henry Lee, who was the head of the Connecticut state forensic laboratory.

Henry Lee, who is now commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety, uses the laws of physics to uphold the laws of justice. His experience is reading. Clues written in blood. Don't be afraid of getting your hands dirty in the process like any substance the blood is affected by gravity and momentum each type of blood spilled leaves characteristic clues the stabbing will create dripping patterns the relatively low velocity of the weapon does not propel the blood too far from the source excessive speed The bullet, on the other hand, creates a bloody mist and a blunt wound produces large splashes that can spread far by examining the small tails behind each drop of blood and determining the position of the victim and the amount of force used to create the injury. and by the size of the wound you can determine the type of weapon used and deduce the circumstances of a person's desk.

Leah is perhaps most famous for her work on the OJ Simpson trial. She also helped identify victims in mass graves in Bosnia. When Lee received the photographs taken from the Matheson case, he studied them closely and became suspicious. He felt that he was definitely looking at a crime scene. After receiving the photograph, I did the detailed examination. My initial reaction. Something is wrong in this case. He took a drop tackle. place inside the bay from the driver's side window photographs, Lee could see that blood on the front of the van was splattered at medium speed, suggesting blunt force trauma.

It appeared the victim was hit several times. Blood stains on the window also contradicted Matheson's claim. that his wife dived at the time of the incident this window was up approximately 200 medium speed blood spatters were noticed in this area alone Lee needed to see the van first hand to trace the trajectory of this matter there were threads connected to each droplet to determining their common point of origin turned out to be the area of ​​the driver's seat approximately at the height where a person's head would be these findings showed that the damage was inflicted before she left the vehicle the autopsy photos showed that the head of the victim had suffered enough damage to kill her once Dr.

Li determined that a fight had occurred in the van investigators knew Ken Matheson was lying his motive for killing his wife was probably money if she died in an accident they would pay her five hundred ninety and five thousand dollars and if she died in a car accident, he would be paid six hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars according to the evidence and Matheson was arrested on his day off. The police reconstructed the murder while Yvonne drove and the Memphis instructor with a blood gained control and brought. until he stopped, he continued beating her to the brink of death.

The marks on her hands suggested that she had tried to defend herself in the darkness. Matheson probably didn't realize he was leaving blood splatters that would be his downfall once he was sure his wife didn't survive and he pulled her out of the truck and ran her over, took her back to the truck and waited for her to die. Someone would stop and ask for help. We had a feeling and many suspicions that we didn't have. no conclusive evidence for dr. Lee's blood spatter analysis is what gave us our first truly compelling evidence in 1995. Ken Matheson was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and murder.

He is not eligible for parole for 25 years. Sometimes the coroner's findings can only tell part of the story when that happens. forensic criminalists like dr. Li gives a voice to victims who would otherwise be silenced forever. The victim left. He can't testify. The physical evidence speaks for her. Matheson is simple but vague and mine was undone by some forensic details that he simply didn't have, but it may be the same forensic science that he proves murder with can also be used to prove that no murder was committed. Experts in New York state hoped so. The town of Mons Bill, in central New York, is one of those quiet, picturesque places that go unnoticed in the landscape as motorists rush by in June 1990.

It became an unlikely battlefield for a very unlikely soldier. The trouble began in a run-down farm on the outskirts of town Delbert Ward 59 woke up at dawn to milk his cows He tried to wake his brother William but he didn't move William hadn't been feeling well lately Delbert thought it best to let him sleep Delbert would take care of the chores without him today the front brothers were calm and simple they had spent their entire lives on the dairy farm it was their universe all they had and everyone knew that they were lonely and childish, the brothers even shared their bed, probably as they had done since childhood.

William, the eldest, also the smartest and strongest, ran the show, Delbert was his right-hand man, the other brothers, Rosco and Lyman, occasionally pitched in to help. but on this day June 6 Delbert was alone even after finishing his chores he couldn't wake up brother William something was wrong Delbert called his brothers and then he didn't know what to do because the brothers in the neighborhood didn't have a phone Delbert Roscoe walked home from a neighbor for help, his fourth brother, Lyman, watched over William untilarrived, 20 minutes after Delbert made his call to state police and the Madison County coroner showed up at the farm.

William's body was examined, no signs of foul play were noted, it appeared that William, 64, died peacefully in his sleep. His body was transported to the medical examiner's office while police interviewed the surviving brothers in the following days. brothers tried to continue their work, it would be difficult without brother Bill Delbert life would be much harder and their problems were just beginning at William's autopsy, the assistant medical examiner took tissue samples and made careful notes. No indicators of natural disease were noted in the report, however, something unusual demanded attention in the dot-sized hemorrhages and Williams' eyes, mouth, and trachea, these small dots called petechial hemorrhages. may have several causes often is the first indication of death by asphyxiation the assistant medical examiner could not rule out death by unnatural means on the death certificate the cause of death was listed as pending further studies the district attorney was contacted and was informed the case was upsetting and this is where communication apparently began to fail the message was passed to the state police and suspicions about the petechial hemorrhages became confusing along the way now the possibility of homicide became a certainty Delbert was taken to the station for questioning he was interviewed for four hours his interrogation was not reported according to attorney Ralph Cagnetti in Albany New York Delbert was confused by all the attention he just wanted to get back to the farm so he was soon willing to say anything he signed the confession tell them what you want to hear and they'll let you go home and that's actually what they told him, they certainly didn't let him go home after confessing but if you get a chance to read the confession it really sounds like a Harvard dissertation . and you, you know, certainly did it on the inside, that did not come from Delbert's lips, however, the confession along with the autopsy results were enough to arrest Delbert.

A grand jury later returned an indictment against him for second-degree murder to the people of Mons. With a population of 400, it was absurd to think that Delbert would or could have killed his brother. They believed the state had made a mistake when his bail was set at $10,000. The entire town contributed and raised the money in a matter of hours. The kindness of the neighbors and the plight of Delbert Ward earned him an article in the New York Times. The groundswell of support for Doug began to grow. A friend of the wards brought Ralph Cagnetti into the case based on his conversation with Delbert Cog.

Nettie was convinced to her clients of her innocence. Review of the evidence suggested that the murder charge was based more on Delbert's confession than on physical evidence from the medical examiner's office. While Cagnetti was preparing his defense, he received a fateful call. The man identified himself as Cyril Wet. The name meant nothing to the committee. Here was a gentleman who explained to me that he was a forensic pathologist from Pittsburgh and he read the article, he read the story about the children and was willing to review any evidence we had at no cost to us.dr.

Cyril Wecht's reputation extends far beyond the walls of the coroner's office in Pittsburgh, where he serves as Allegheny County's chief forensic pathologist. He has helped investigators on the assassination of Robert Kennedy and has been a consultant on the death of Elvis Presley, in addition to degrees in medicine, but he also has a degree in law, had read about the Delbert Ward case in The New York Times and woke up your interest. He requested William Ward's case file. After reviewing the file that included the autopsy report, my initial impression was that there was no adequate basis. For any forensic pathologist to conclude that this was a death from asphyxia due to asphyxiation, there were simply no adequate results for such a diagnosis using the original medical examiner's assistant notes.

Wet formulated a more mundane diagnosis. William Ward died of heart disease, the number one killer of men. In fact, at his age in the United States, neighborhood brothers had told authorities that William had been in poor health for years, but he refused to see a doctor. His symptoms were consistent with cardiovascular disease, which supported West's theory, but the prosecution believed Williams' illness could have provided a motive. For his murder, did Delbert Ward kill his brother William? New York State said he did it on his theory. Delbert suffocated his brother to free him from his fragile health.

They said it may have been a mercy to kill her, but it was murder anyway. Prosecutors pointed to Delbert's strange behavior on the day of Williams' death, when Delbert failed to wake his brother at dawn as he normally did. Still, he went about his business for the prosecution whose lack of concern suggested guilt for Ralph Cobb Metis, he said. More about the realities of life on a farm he was appointed prosecutor to: How a person who was so concerned about his brother's well-being was going to milk cows, what came to light at trial, and what I'm Surely the members of the jury knew because there were one or two dairy farmers on the jury was that if a cow is not milked when necessary and the cows are going to get very sick, something similar to II and Cyril Wecht was left with the idea that William died of natural causes, but not to prove it, the victim had already been buried all wet had to work from the autopsy records, those same records and tissue samples that, according to the state, showed nothing Unusual besides the petechial hemorrhages, it wasn't wet enough that Redlund was sure, but he had everything he needed to prove Ward's innocence based on the thin tissue samples collected at William Ward's autopsy along with the medical examiner's data.

Williams' heart was enlarged and his coronary arteries became 20% blocked. His right lung was heavily scarred and weighed twice as much as his legs. His liver. and the spleen also enlarged without a drastic change in habits death from heart disease seemed inevitable for William different things but Wecht had to undermine the prosecution's claim that he was murdered to be relieved of his suffering he cried he only had photographs and tissue samples from William Ward To work, he drew on his vast experience in other cases in which he examined the bodies directly. He observed the petechiae, the telltale red hemorrhages found in the victims' eyes and mouths, to the point where these were clear signs of strangulation and overshadowed all other symptoms.

While it is true that petechial hemorrhages can indicate asphyxiation, they are not enough to prove it beyond a doubt; unless a person is in some way incapacitated before suffocation, the body will likely show signs of struggle. William Ward was unaware of the injuries around his mouth. and tongue and gums, there are no lesions on or around the neck, there is no evidence of increased fluidity of the blood, there is no evidence of an increased blue color of the blood and there is no aspiration of gastric contents that will occur when a person struggles , so we had none of that for the defense there was no evidence of murder Williams simply died in his sleep due to heart disease the murder charge was the result of an unfortunate series of communication errors that had gotten out of control or were can take the scene of the incident by one person and then pass it on to another second to a third and then when you get to the sixth, the tenth or the 15th, you will find that that story has very little relationship to the original creation and the original version, entering on the case as an outsider who was immune to preconceived notions that Delbert Ward was a murderer by looking at the case with a new perspective.

Delbert's freedom on April 5, 1991. Delbert Ward was acquitted of all charges. He grew like a bomb. He almost started small and then at the end of the trial, he converted. what is today truly a legend in that part of the state Cyril Wecht believes that the situation Delbert Ward found himself in was not unusual. He has seen many cases that were tainted by a coroner's erroneous assumptions, an investigator's quick conclusion or a simple misunderstanding. Unfortunately, these errors tend to compound. We work closely and constantly with homicide

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, police and district attorneys. We listen to versions of him consciously, subconsciously, those versions start to take hold and the mine starts to work and then you build your own impressions, ultimately yours. opinions and conclusions that best fit us no matter how mysterious or suspicious the death may seem, the truth can be resurrected in the laboratory every day the forensic skills of the medical examiner and the crime scene expert prove that the most important witness of a death is the deceased you