The Coroner Series

by Thomas T. Noguchi

  Collaterally, Prinze’s widow and son, in 1981 and 1982, had won almost one million dollars in settlement of malpractice suits against Prinze’s psychiatrist, Dr. Kroger, and his internist, Dr. Edward B. Albon. Those suits claimed that Kroger had improperly allowed Prinze access to the gun he used to kill himself, after once taking it away, and that Albon had wrongly overprescribed Quaaludes.

  Thus, in the eyes of the law, the man who shot himself in front of an eyewitness turned out not to be a suicide. The actual cause of death, whether by suicide or by accident, was a drug, Quaalude. And so, in reality, Freddie Prinze did not die by his own hand. He died in one last tragic attempt to get a laugh.

  MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD

  The Case of Dorothy Stratten

  1

  Rapes which climax in murder are a continuing affliction of our society. To counter this affliction, I set up a Sexual Assault Evidence Data Processing Unit in our Forensic Science Center in Los Angeles. Evidence collected by this unit aids the Los Angeles Police Department in many ways, from establishing the motive for a killing to actually identifying the murderer.

  For example, the first item in the Sexual Assault Evidence Data sheet, under “General Evidence Collection,” is “Nail Scrapings Collected.” In a rape the victim often claws or scratches her assailant’s face and body. But even though police might suspect a man whose face bears such a scratch, the suspect will always claim he received the wound in an innocent matter.

  Forensic science can prove it was made by the victim. I remember particularly a case in which a pretty young girl was found dead, her dress in disarray above her thighs. Her throat had been cut, and there was evidence of semen in her vagina. In sum, an obvious rape/murder. When LAPD detectives questioned her boyfriend, they noticed he had a small scratch on his cheek, but it was so small it could have come from shaving, as the suspect insisted. However, our scientists had preserved a tiny roll of skin found under one of the victim’s fingernails. They rolled it flat—and it exactly fit the scratch on the suspect’s face. That led to intensive interrogation, and he eventually confessed to the murder.

  Another important item under “General Evidence Collection” is “Bite Mark Evidence.” Sexual assailants sometimes bite their victims, and forensic dentistry can now reconstruct the teeth of the murderer from such a bite mark. The most famous case of bite-mark identification occurred in Florida, where, at long last, a serial killer named Theodore Bundy was apprehended.

  Bundy, a clean-cut, attractive man of about thirty, began his killing spree in the Northwest. He had a specialty: beautiful college girls with long dark hair. He would approach these coeds, lure them into his car, rape and kill them, then toss them into a lonely area of the forest. By the time their bodies were discovered, they had been ravaged by animals and insects and provided no clues to investigators.

  After a series of such murders, Bundy moved on to a Southwestern college and murdered several girls there. Then—always on the move to further confuse and frustrate detectives—he went all the way to Florida. But there one night at a Miami college he altered his usual pattern. Instead of luring one of the coeds into his car, he invaded her room in a small dormitory, raped and killed her, then did the same to her two roommates when they returned unexpectedly.

  No doubt, continuing his modus operandi, he would have left Florida and started a new round of killings in a distant state—but he had at last made one mistake in his continuing orgy of murders. He bit the buttock of one of his victims. And then, fleeing the scene, he was stopped for a traffic violation by police in Tampa, who noted that his driver’s license was a forgery. While he was being questioned, news of the deaths in Miami and the missing murderer came through.

  There was other evidence against Bundy, but none as conclusive as the reconstruction of his teeth that forensic dentists were able to make from that single bite mark found on one of his victims. Introduced in court as evidence, it matched Bundy’s teeth perfectly. He was convicted of murder, and a serial killer was stopped in his rampage, because of a bite—and forensic science.

  Forensic science has many tools besides dentistry to investigate rape/murders, from microscopy and serology, which detect spermatozoa, to ballistics, which identifies firearms employed, to psychology, which seeks to profile the killer. All of these factors came together one day in the investigation of a crime in Hollywood which shocked the nation.

  2

  A beautiful girl lies dead of a shotgun wound. A young man lies near her, also killed by a shotgun, which is on the floor near his feet. A double murder by an intruder, or murder followed by a suicide?

  That was the actual scene of the death of Dorothy Stratten, a “small town” girl who had come to Hollywood to pursue a career as a model and actress. The dead young man was Paul Snider, her hometown boyfriend, later her husband, and their tragic story began in Vancouver, Canada, where Dorothy Hoogstraaten was serving ice cream cones at a Dairy Queen when a young man with a mustache and trendy jeans entered. Paul Snider ordered a cone and studied the fresh-complexioned, voluptuous young girl, and saw what he had been looking for: a potential Playmate for Playboy magazine.

  The magazine offered thousands of dollars to those girls willing to bare their bodies for Playboy’s readers. The young woman behind the counter was the perfect girl-next-door type that the magazine craved—and Snider could get a commission. He told Dorothy he was a promoter and “producer,” persuaded her to go to dinner with him, and a romance blossomed. With one catch. Dorothy refused to take her clothes off before the camera. But eventually Snider prevailed, the pictures were sent to Playboy, and it is a tribute to Dorothy Stratten’s beauty that less than two days after Playboy received them she was on her way to Hollywood.

  Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion is a notorious part of the Hollywood scene, crowded with lovely young girls and often visited by male Hollywood stars, directors and producers. Stratten was moved right into the house. Hefner, the founder of Playboy, told her she might be not only a Playmate of the Year, but a candidate for the Playmate of the Quarter-Century. Snider, elated with her success, flew down to Los Angeles, where he announced to Hefner that he was Dorothy’s manager.

  According to reports, Hefner did not like Snider, whom he described as a small-time hustler. Worse for Snider, Hefner introduced the naive young beauty to Peter Bogdanovich, a skilled and respected motion picture director, who had seen his career founder through his love for another young model and actress, Cybill Shepherd. He had cast Shepherd in certain expensive movies for which her talents were apparently not suited, and in the end both Shepherd and his career had gone into temporary eclipse.

  Nevertheless, such was the beauty of this young girl from Vancouver that Bogdanovich felt himself fatally attracted again. He cast Dorothy in a movie he was making in New York, and once the two were on location in the city they fell in love.

  Meanwhile, Snider’s world was falling apart. Determined to cash in on Dorothy’s success, he had earlier persuaded her to marry him, thus strengthening his hold on her. But now he felt he was losing her. He had also been barred from the Playboy Mansion—the ultimate snub to someone of Snider’s makeup. Rejected and humiliated, he decided to take action. When Dorothy returned from New York, she did not move in with him. She wanted a divorce. Snider hired a private detective to follow her.

  On August 15, 1980, the private investigator alerted friends of Snider’s who lived above him to the fact that neither Snider nor Stratten had emerged from Snider’s apartment after a meeting in which they were supposed to thrash out their problems. Within minutes a dreadful scene was discovered in that apartment, and an investigator from the coroner’s office, Michael A. Shepherd, was on his way to the scene.

  3

  When I became Chief Medical Examiner in 1967 there was no full-time investigator’s staff in the coroner’s office. I installed such a staff, and it has done excellent work through the years. Skilled investigators who can go to the scene of a crime, search it professio
nally for clues to the cause and circumstance of death, collect vital evidence, and make a detailed report of all criminalistic and other relevant factors at the scene are now an integral part of the forensic process.

  In the Stratten case, investigator Shepherd filed a particularly excellent description and forensic analysis of the scene.

  Decedents are a 20-year-old female and 20-year-old male, who are married, but separated, pending divorce action. Decedent 80-10485 is the 1980 Playmate of the Year (professional name: Dorothy Stratten). Decedent 80-10486 is her husband….

  Coroner observed both Decedents in a first floor bedroom. Both were unclothed, both in full rigor. Decedent Hoogstraaten, 80-10485, was cool to the touch, lying semi-crouched across the end of a low bed…. She was lying with both legs on the carpet, and right shoulder on the carpet, with her buttocks raised. She had blood stains, possible hand prints, to her buttocks, and left leg. She had trauma to both knees. She had an entrance [wound], close to the contact shotgun wound to her left cheek, with much blood loss. She had lividity consistent with her position. She had non-consistent blood stains to her left shoulder and left arm. There was blood splatter on the east wall and curtains, next to her head. She had lost the tip of her left index finger, possible gunshot wound. Beneath her was a towel, with a hole and blood stains.

  Near Decedent Hoogstraaten’s head, but at an angle away from her, a “love seat” sexual appliance was on the floor. It was set into a position for possible rear entry intercourse.

  Decedent Snider, 80-10486, was cool to the touch, lying prone on the rug, lying head to the east, in line with the end of the bed…. He was lying with both hands beneath him, at lower chest level. A shotgun was observed under him, lying under Decedent, stock toward his neck, barrel toward the right knee. He had an entrance shotgun wound to the right side of his head, with open wound between his eyes, and drain from the wound behind his left ear. The left eye was bulging from the socket. His right hand had long blond hair in it (recovered by Coroner in Miscellaneous Evidence). The wound to the right side of his head had a blackened portion about it….

  Decedent’s right index finger was extended, with the rest of the right fingers curled. The fingers of the left hand were curled. Lividity matched his position, to include an outline of the shotgun. He had trauma to his right thumb. An expended round of 12 gauge #4 buckshot load was recovered from the weapon, a 12 gauge Mossberg pump shotgun. It is two feet-two inches from the depressed position of the trigger to the end of the barrel.

  An expended round of similar type and an unexpended round were recovered from the floor, about both bodies.

  At this time, no notes were found. A tape recorder was checked at the scene, with negative results. At this point, no one has come forth with statements of intent of action or frame of mind of violent action, by either Decedent, toward the other Decedent.

  To the layman, such a report might seem shocking and chillingly impersonal, but it is essential in the accurate reconstruction of any crime. And it is only the first step in a much broader forensic investigation, which includes autopsy and the careful laboratory analysis of evidence found at the scene. In the Dorothy Stratten case, it was immediately apparent that an intruder had not committed a double murder. Evidence pointed conclusively to murder followed by suicide. Yet a question remained when it was alleged that Dorothy Stratten was subjected to a sexual assault before her death.

  Here again, forensic science provided the answer. Alert to that possibility, the investigator at the scene took fingernail scrapings and hair samples for analysis, and a sexual-assault test was performed. There were no laboratory findings of sexual abuse, only of “possible sexual activity.” Thus, Dorothy Stratten’s last moments of life before Paul Snider shot her in the head, then put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, must be left to conjecture.

  AN “IMPOSSIBLE” DROWNING

  The Case of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson

  1

  From the terrace of my small apartment in Marina del Rey, California, I could see the blue waters of the Pacific stretching toward the horizon. To my left, just across the street, one of the many picturesque marinas on this part of the coastline was crowded with boats of every kind from large luxurious yachts to tiny sailboats. In that very marina a few days before, on December 30, 1983, a Hollywood celebrity had met a very mysterious death. Dennis Wilson, a member of the legendary Beach Boys rock music group, had drowned in only twelve feet of water.

  I felt a chill of recognition when I heard about the drowning, for the name Dennis Wilson was certainly familiar to me. In 1969, during my investigation of the murder of actress Sharon Tate and her friends by the Charles Manson “family,” Wilson’s name had turned up in a surprising fashion. It seemed that he had allowed the Manson cult to live in his house on Sunset Boulevard for a whole year, and had encouraged Manson as a musician. But then they had a falling out, Manson and his hippies had left—and Wilson told police he had received death threats.

  Could his death be the culmination of one such threat? The autopsy had revealed bruises all over Wilson’s face.

  2

  In 1961 Dennis Wilson rushed in from the beach to tell his brother Brian a wonderful idea for a song: the search for the perfect wave. Dennis and Brian, along with another brother, Carl, were then part of a rock group called Carl and the Passions, which also included a cousin, Mike Love, and a friend, Alan Jardine. Brian was the genius of the group; he took Dennis’ idea and created a song that made rock-and-roll history: “Surfin’.”

  The song was an international hit, and the group soon changed its name to the Beach Boys, and added another musician, Bruce Johnston. They became the embodiment of California adolescent exuberance, their songs exuding the free spirit of the beach, fun in the sand, and pretty girls. But interestingly, only Dennis among the group was a surfer; the rest rarely saw the beach. And Brian, the writer who created such hits as “Surfin’,” “Surf’s Up,” and “Surfin’ Safari,” was a moody recluse who spent most of his time indoors.

  The Beach Boys surged to prominence in 1961 with a performance at Municipal Auditorium in Long Beach, California. Then they went on a national tour, and their music was embraced by young people everywhere. Their first million-selling album was “Good Vibrations,” one of thirty-three albums they would eventually release. And in 1966 they were voted the world’s most popular rock group in an English poll, supplanting the Beatles.

  But in the late sixties, after the initial flood of surf and hot-rod hits had receded, their popularity began to decline and there was trouble within the group. Brian Wilson grew even more reclusive, hiding away from the others. Carl Wilson, the group’s cohesive force, became embroiled with the government by resisting the draft as a conscientious objector. And Dennis Wilson, the free spirit, the one real surfer, lost himself in drugs and alcohol.

  It was during that period that Dennis became involved with the Manson “family.” And after they parted company, he was the target of several death threats, which he reported to police. But none of the threats ever materialized, and, as the years passed, Wilson told friends he thought this strange interlude in his life was at last behind him.

  Meanwhile, his career was suffering. In fact, by 1982 the Beach Boys, beset with their internal problems, were lingering on the edge of oblivion. They were saved, ironically, by a man who denounced them, Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt. Even more ironically, Watt was right on target with his criticism—and yet he was the one who had to apologize.

  Californians, headed by President Ronald Reagan, were in control of the Administration in Washington. What better group to perform for them at a July Fourth gala, they believed, than the quintessential Californians, the Beach Boys? Until Watt spoke up. He said the Beach Boys would attract “the wrong element” to the gala—and added, “We’re not going to encourage drug abuse and alcoholism, as was done in years past.

  Everyone, including President Reagan, sprang to the Beach Boys’ defense, unaw
are that Dennis and Brian Wilson did have drug and alcohol problems. Nancy Reagan was quoted as saying to Watt, “I like the Beach Boys. My kids grew up with their music.” In the end Watt had to apologize in public, showing reporters a large plaster foot with a hole in it to symbolize his having shot himself in the pedal extremity.

  The publicity was sensational—and money in the bank. The Beach Boys were “hot” again. A show at LA’s Universal Amphitheater after the Washington gala was a great success, and other dates followed. The only trouble was, Dennis was missing. Sadly, he was trying, and failing, to shake off his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

  On Friday, December 23, 1983, Dennis checked into St. John’s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica. He spoke at length to Dr. Jokichi Takamine, the doctor who would care for him at St. John’s, about his desire to end his alcohol addiction. On December 24 they met again—but Christmas was the next day, a Sunday, and the doctor said he would be away. While he was gone on Christmas, Dennis checked out of the hospital.

  3

  On Tuesday, December 27, 1983, a man named Bill Oster was puttering about his boat, the Emerald, docked at a pier on Marquesas Way. The phone rang, and Oster heard the voice of an old friend, Dennis Wilson. Oster was glad to hear from him and agreed to pick up Wilson and a girl, Colleen “Crystal” McGovern.

  Wilson, during a former marriage, had owned a boat, the Harmony, which he also kept at the Marquesas Way pier. He arrived on the Emerald with vodka and spent the rest of the day, and most of the night, drinking. Dennis told Oster about his proposed alcohol rehabilitation program, and added, “They won’t let me back into the band until I do it.” At about midnight he passed out, but an hour later he was up, and he spent a sleepless night, sometimes telephoning a former wife, Shaun, and former friends.