The Education of a Coroner

by John Bateson

  Twenty minutes later, someone from DEA was at the hospital, sitting next to him. Holmes shared what he knew, and the man was all ears. Then the man saw the two women, and his eyes lit up.

  “We’ve been looking for these two guys for years,” the DEA agent said. “We didn’t even know they were back in California. The last we heard, they were in Florida, buying big yachts and taking them out on a sail, then sinking them and collecting the insurance.”

  He explained the concept of reinsuring whereby a person or company takes out partial or full insurance from another insurer and is covered when an accident occurs. The Brownlie brothers were doing this, and dealing drugs as well. The DEA hadn’t been able to find them, however. Now here they were in Marin County.

  As the DEA agent and Holmes were talking, the two women walked out the front door, the girlfriend supporting the new widow. The DEA agent let them go; they weren’t the ones he was after.

  As soon as they left, he went to the pay phone, dialed a number, and said without preamble, “Run this number and call me back.” He didn’t say this is Agent So-and-So; apparently, he didn’t need to. He just recited the number of the pay phone.

  Ten minutes later, the pay phone rang and the DEA agent moved quickly to answer it. Without saying a word, he opened a notebook and began writing down what he was being told—all of the phone numbers that the woman named Cheryl had dialed. It was still the middle of the night, and twenty-five years before 9/11, so the government’s technological capabilities were nowhere near what they are today; nevertheless, within minutes the agent had the information he needed.

  When questioned, Gordon Brownlie said that he knew there was a lot of money in the trunk of the Mercedes, but it belonged to his brother, not him. DEA officials weren’t fooled; they knew that both brothers were involved. In a show of chutzpah, Gordon Brownlie later sued to get the money returned to him after it was impounded. If he thought that that might have any effect on his own chances of avoiding prosecution, however, he was mistaken. Federal agents had been waiting years for the opportunity to bust him and his brother.

  When the toxicology report came back, it showed that the blood alcohol content of the decedent, Stephen Brownlie, was .28 and there was cocaine in his system. Gordon Brownlie had been heavily intoxicated as well. While he was in the hospital, he was charged in absentia for driving under the influence and for vehicular homicide in the death of his brother. That was just the beginning, though. Government agents had a slew of other offenses lined up.

  The Brownlie brothers’ traffic accident turned out to have repercussions across the country. Out of it, DEA gained contact information for dozens of drug dealers and made busts in multiple states.

  A PROFESSIONAL RACE CAR DRIVER’S DEATH

  A week later, Holmes was investigating another accident. This time he was woken up at 4 A.M.

  Two California Highway Patrol officers had been called to a winding road in another rural part of Marin because a passing motorist had reported several boards scattered across the road. The boards were from a corral fence that ran parallel to the road. When the officers stopped, they saw that the fence was broken. Beyond the fence was an embankment and a ditch. They swept the area with flashlights and could see, below, that a Capri coupe was wrapped around a tree. The officers climbed down the embankment to the vehicle. Lying next to the car were two bodies. One body was that of the driver. He was on his back, his head pointed toward the rear of the car, while his feet were still inside, wedged beneath the gas and clutch pedals. The other body, of a woman, was partially on top of him. The officers had to lift debris and the shattered remains of the windshield off her before they were able to determine that she was dead, too.

  When Holmes arrived, he saw that the tree was embedded in the car and the entire top of the coupe had been peeled back to the rear window on impact. The officers told him that an unidentified person had passed the scene at midnight and hadn’t noticed anything, then passed again at 1:30 A.M. and saw wood fencing on the road.

  The driver was dressed in a three-piece tan suit with a blue shirt, brown boots and socks, and beige bikini underwear. A sparse amount of blood was on the ground beneath his head, but his left coat sleeve was soaked in blood. His body was cool to the touch, with no rigor mortis and only slight lividity, indicating that death had been recent. Holmes didn’t find any identification on him, but upon opening the trunk he found men’s clothing with a wallet that had a driver’s license. The photo on the license matched the face of the man in the wreckage. Also in the trunk were briefcases that contained toiletries, personal papers, a Texas Instruments calculator, a Colt .38-caliber revolver, and a prescription bottle of Valium.

  The woman was dressed in a black velvet top and matching pants. She was wearing pantyhose and a full-length red cloak. Her head was toward the front of the car and her legs were drawn up close to her body. There was blood on her face and on the ground under her head. In her purse was identification.

  Later in the day, Holmes was contacted by a fireman whose house was far up from the road where the accident occurred but directly overlooked the area. He said he and his wife had been asleep but shortly after midnight were awakened by a loud crash. It was so loud that he thought someone had come up his driveway and driven through his fence, but when he checked he didn’t see anything so he went back to bed, thinking that if the crash occurred in the canyon below someone would have seen or heard it and offered assistance. At 7:30 A.M., as he was on his way to work, he saw a tow truck pulling up a badly damaged coupe from the ravine and realized that it was probably from the accident he had heard. He contacted the coroner’s office, and the information helped narrow the time of the accident.

  During his investigation, Holmes learned that the man in the car was a thirty-year-old professional race car driver named Daniel. He had come to Marin County to race at Sears Point, a two-and-a-half-mile road course and drag strip in neighboring Sonoma County that is a host to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Daniel had booked a room at the Alvarado Inn (now called the Marin Inn), nine miles away on Highway 101. The hotel was popular with Sears Point drivers because of its proximity to the racetrack. The bar scene there was lively as a result, with numerous young women hanging out, looking to meet the racers. One of them was an attractive twenty-nine-year-old hairdresser named Toni.

  She and Daniel hit it off, and she invited him to her house. It was only a few miles away, but the road was curvy and not well lit. He drove and she sat in the passenger seat.

  Coroner’s reports are public information, often viewed by family members. For that reason investigators tend to omit sensitive details that aren’t pertinent to the official summary. These details may have bearing on the case so they are added as a confidential addendum, but they aren’t considered something that people outside the coroner’s office or law enforcement need to know.

  In this instance, Holmes omitted from his report the fact that at the time of the accident, Toni most likely was leaning across the narrow console between the two seats and had her head in Daniel’s lap. He wasn’t speeding, but his mind no doubt was elsewhere as he approached an unfamiliar ninety-degree turn in the dark. That was why he went too wide and drove through the fence. The police officers and Holmes surmised, based on the vegetation that was damaged, that as the car bolted down the embankment, careening wildly, Daniel fought for control. Then gravity took over and the car descended toward a grove of trees. When it hit one tree head-on, the driver’s-side door flew open and the bulk of Daniel’s body—all except his feet—spilled out onto the ground. Toni’s body followed, landing on top of him.

  In his investigative report, Holmes noted Daniel’s clothes, but didn’t note that at the time of the accident his pants were undone, his zipper was down, and his underwear was pushed aside. It was obvious why his attention had been diverted.

  One of the cops joked, “He didn’t know whether he was coming or going.”

  It was the sort of dark humor that first respo
nders often employ. From time to time, Holmes was tempted to join in, but what prevented him was knowing that in nearly every case, the decedent had loved ones, and his next stop after leaving the scene involved notifying them.

  AUTOEROTICISM

  One of the odder forms of death that Holmes encountered had to do with autoerotic asphyxiation—the practice of becoming sexually stimulated through near suffocation or self-strangulation. Holmes didn’t come across it often, fewer than ten times in his career, but when he did it usually was obvious. The decedent, all but one time a male, was naked or dressed in female undergarments, and had pornographic material or sex toys nearby. Typically, he was hanging from a beam or showerhead, and used something that wouldn’t leave a mark, such as the sash of a bathrobe. In some cases he was holding his genitalia; other times there was evidence that he had reached orgasm prior to death. It wasn’t a suicide, because he didn’t intend to die. He lost consciousness, though, and no one was there to save him.

  Twice in his early years, Holmes responded to the scene of an autoerotic death. The phenomenon was so far outside his personal world that he started doing research on it to become better informed. One of the few writers on the subject in this country—autoeroticism is more common in Europe and Scandinavia—was Roy Hazelwood, a former profiler for the FBI. At the time, Hazelwood had written the only books that examined autoerotic deaths from an investigative viewpoint. When Holmes saw that Hazelwood was going to be the featured speaker at an upcoming conference of the California Homicide Investigators Association, in San Francisco, he made a point of attending. Hazelwood talked about the cause, effect, and psychology of autoeroticism, noting that it applied almost exclusively to males. Holmes couldn’t help but approach him afterward and tell him that he had handled the autoerotic death of a female. Hazelwood was intrigued and said he would love to see photos from the scene. His obvious but unstated intention was to determine whether it really was an autoerotic case. Since Hazelwood was going to be in San Francisco for a week, Holmes suggested that they have lunch together. Hazelwood accepted and they made arrangements to meet several days later in Sausalito.

  The case involved a forty-six-year-old woman, originally from Switzerland, who was found by her boyfriend after he returned home from work. She was nude and hanging by pantyhose that was tied loosely around her neck and attached to the shower faucet. The single-loop looseness of the ligature made it possible for her to step out of it, assuming she was conscious, in contrast to a noose that would have been employed in a suicide attempt. In addition, her hands were in her groin area, and Holmes found evidence that suggested that before she got in the shower she took a bath, then stood in front of a mirror. The mirror was movable and had been placed so that she could see herself in her nylon noose while standing in the shower. He also learned in the course of his investigation that the woman hadn’t had sex with her ex-husband during the last six years of their marriage.

  Holmes showed Hazelwood the photos he had taken at the scene. Hazelwood barely had to look at them before declaring, “Absolutely. This is autoerotic.”

  In some instances, individuals who engage in autoeroticism suspend themselves by rope or sash from a beam or door. If he could, Holmes got on a ladder so that he was able to look down on the cross point and see whether there was evidence of chafing, which would provide a clue as to how long the autoerotic behavior had been going on. Was it an early experiment or something that was well practiced?

  * * *

  Another case concerned a thirty-year-old man named Darryl. He was the caretaker of a large recreational vehicle and trailer park who rented an apartment nearby. After he didn’t show up to work for two days, the manager of the park went to his apartment and found Darryl hanging in his shower. He was wearing women’s black undergarments with a garter belt, corset, and mesh stockings, and had clamped clothespins on certain parts of his body.

  After surveying the scene, Holmes asked the manager for Darryl’s emergency contact information so that he could notify next of kin. The manager said he didn’t have it, but Darryl had a young girlfriend who had been there frequently. Holmes searched Darryl’s apartment and found her address, then he took a cop with him and knocked on the girlfriend’s door.

  Her mother answered. She was blue-eyed, in her forties, and had a Swedish accent. Holmes told her why he was there, that a man had died and the woman’s daughter was his girlfriend.

  The mother looked at him wide-eyed. “Wow,” she said. “What happened to him? He was young and healthy.”

  Holmes wasn’t about to tell her any details. “Well,” he hedged, “we’re not really sure.”

  The mother motioned for Holmes and the cop to come in and said that she would get her daughter. The cop told Holmes that there wasn’t any further reason for him to stay, so the officer left.

  Holmes took a seat in the living room. Several minutes later the mother and daughter emerged from the daughter’s bedroom. The daughter was sobbing and the mother had her arm around her.

  Darryl’s girlfriend almost certainly was underage—sixteen or seventeen, Holmes guessed, although he didn’t ask because it didn’t matter. What was striking was her appearance. She was so beautiful that she could have been a teenage model. She had long blond hair, flawless skin, and perfect features. That made the circumstances surrounding Darryl’s death all the more bizarre.

  Holmes asked the girl—she truly seemed like a girl in his mind, not a young woman—if she knew where Darryl’s family lived. She said she didn’t know; he never talked about them.

  “I don’t know if he has brothers or sisters or anything,” she said.

  Holmes nodded. She had used the present tense, as many people do when they refer to someone who has just died, and he did, too. “How long have you been together?”

  She paused to think. “Seven or eight months.”

  “Have you two been sexually active?” It was a question he always felt uncomfortable asking of young people, especially if their parents were present, but it was relevant to the investigation.

  She looked at her mom, who nodded. “Yes,” the girl said.

  At one point the daughter excused herself, saying that she needed to call someone. When she was out of the room, her mother said, “What do you think really happened?”

  Holmes hesitated. “I don’t know if you understand autoeroticism,” he began.

  The mother looked at him nonplussed. “Sure.”

  “Oh,” Holmes said. “Well, we’re pretty sure this was an autoerotic death. He was found hanging in his shower, wearing ladies’ underclothing. It wasn’t a suicide.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” the mother said. “In my country it’s quite common. Couples engage in it all the time. Sometimes you’re by yourself, and sometimes you’re with your partner.”

  Holmes relaxed a little and thought to himself, Okay, we’re cool.

  The daughter came back and sat next to her mother on the couch. Holmes was across from them. The mother told her daughter what she and Holmes had been talking about, and said that Darryl hanged himself during an autoerotic episode.

  The girl’s eyes opened wide. “Really?” she said. She knew exactly what her mother was referring to. “Did he hang himself in the bedroom or somewhere else?”

  Holmes was amazed by the openness of the conversation. It was unlike any other that he had had.

  “In the shower,” he said.

  The mother said, “He was wearing women’s underwear. Are you missing any undergarments?”

  “I don’t think so,” her daughter said. “I hardly ever take clothes over there and leave them. I don’t think I’ve lost any.”

  That led Holmes to think that Darryl bought the underwear on his own. It was more his size than hers anyway.

  Holmes said, “Did he ever, during your time with him, suggest that the two of you engage in anything like this together?”

  She shook her head and said that he was rather conventional when it came to sex, not at all ad
venturous. As if to prove the point she said, “He never wanted to do it in public.”

  Holmes just about fell out of his chair. The way she said it made it sound like she had wanted to.

  Remembering it today he says, “It was amazing for me to sit there and get that kind of brief education from the mom and daughter. It was like they had already talked about this on their own and were matter-of-fact about it. It served as a reminder that each day in my profession was different and held possibilities of the unexpected.”

  CHAPTER 15

  BONES AND A FROZEN INFANT

  Prior to the arrival of English explorer and pirate Francis Drake on the Marin coast in 1589, Marin County was inhabited by Native Americans, primarily Miwok Indian tribes. Long after Drake left and was knighted, the tribes continued to hunt and fish in Marin, and also die there.

  Five to ten times per year, on average, Holmes’s office evaluated Indian remains. They were buried where they died, not in specified plots, and their bones were unearthed during construction of a new home or business development, or when there was land movement of some kind. Construction stopped until a coroner’s investigator determined whether the remains were ancient or more recent. If they were ancient, then it wasn’t a concern. No death certificate would be issued. If they were more recent, however, the remains needed to be identified, if possible, and an approximate date of death established, usually by going through missing-persons reports. An attempt had to be made to determine the cause of death as well. Sometimes there were answers, sometimes not.

  The bones of a man were found on a hillside west of Bolinas, near an RCA radio tower. An RCA employee had been checking the lines when he came across a bleached skull. Noticing that the jaw of the skull contained dental fillings, the employee contacted the sheriff’s office, which in turn called Holmes. He found other bones and also a torn pair of underpants and the bottom portion of a deck shoe. With a shovel and his hands, Holmes sifted through loose dirt and scrub brush and found additional bones, plus three keys, a pair of prescription glasses, some plastic buttons, and small fragments of khaki and woven blue material. Slightly downhill were still more bones, most likely scattered by small animals. He gave the skeletal remains to a forensic anthropologist who concluded that they were of a male in his early twenties, about five foot ten, with heavy musculature. Holmes and others in the office pored through missing-persons reports to try to find a match, but weren’t successful. The cause and manner of the man’s death remained unknown, as did his identity. He stayed John Doe #2 of that year.