Anger boiled over at Dr. Nichopoulos. One deranged Presley fan even fired a rifle at him when he attended a baseball game, and police had to place the physician under a round-the-clock guard to protect his life. Then in 1980, Dr. Nichopoulos went before the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners on charges of misconduct in his treatment of the singer. Silver-haired, his diamond rings flashing in the light from the ceiling, the physician admitted that Elvis gobbled drugs “from the time he woke up in the morning until the time he went to sleep at night.”
Nichopoulos said Presley was a “psychological” addict who had been treated in hospitals in 1973 and 1974 for detoxification from Demerol, a painkiller, and other drugs. Then he went on to give an insight into the famous singer’s life on the road. Dr. Nichopoulos always went along, he said, carrying three suitcases filled with drugs for Presley and his retinue. When a concert was scheduled, Nichopoulos, the week before, would prescribe a “protocol,” a program of strong doses of amphetamines, depressants and painkillers. Presley had died during one of those protocols, which involved 680 pills and 20 cubic centimeters of liquid downers, uppers and painkillers.
But Nichopoulos also presented persuasive evidence that he had sought to control Presley’s drug habits, often substituting placebos for the prescribed drugs. Whenever he did that, however, Presley obtained his drugs from other sources. The jury believed Nichopoulos could not control Presley and declared the doctor innocent.
4
January 8, 1985, would have been the late Elvis Presley’s fiftieth birthday, and Memphis, Tennessee, was once again the center of the music world. Thousands of Presley fans descended on the city, flocking through Graceland, which had been turned into a museum, and laying flowers on his grave, many in bouquets shaped like guitars. That same day Memphis officials announced plans to build a memorial fountain and park across the street from the mansion dedicated to the memory of their most famous citizen.
That night I watched a televised concert of Elvis Presley which was being shown as part of the nationwide celebration of his birthday. There he was, handsome, muscular, strumming a guitar with an electric driving rhythm, and I thought back once more to his death. Just recently I had spoken to Dr. Francisco’s associate, James Spencer Bell, at a medical convention in San Antonio, Texas. Bell was there with some other Memphis pathologists, and they were bombarded with questions about Presley. He said that Jerry Francisco, despite the criticism, was still absolutely convinced that Presley did not die of drugs. But Bell refused to give any reasons for Francisco’s stand other than what was publicly known, because he was under court order not to discuss the controversial autopsy.
But later another Memphis pathologist told me that Presley had been able to function normally to the end, which is not the case in polypharmacy victims, who are dazed and drowsy when near death and almost unable to move. Specifically, Presley had gone to the bathroom and had started washing and preparing for bed. In the midst of those preparations, his heart had suddenly given way, and he toppled over, dead of a heart attack. The ability to function normally until the end was the reason that Dr. Francisco believed Presley did not die from polypharmacy.
But even if that is true, and Presley did die of a heart attack, the root cause of his death, in my opinion, was the combination of prescription drugs he ingested in such quantities that it caused the fatally irregular heartbeat in the first place.
One of my maxims as a forensic scientist has always been “We learn from the dead.” The facts and circumstances of a death can assist those who are living to prevent similar needless tragedies. For that reason, Elvis Presley’s death should raise a red flag for Americans, and people around the world. Many, many people take prescription drugs in combination, perhaps a tranquilizer and an antihistamine, codeine and aspirin, or others even more dangerous. The lesson from the Presley case is clear: Seemingly safe prescription drugs can be as fatal as illegal drugs if taken in combination. Persons ingesting more than one drug should monitor themselves very carefully, in cooperation with a physician.
Elvis Presley’s first hit was “Heartbreak Hotel.” When his own heart “broke,” a lot of joy vanished from the world. But it is my hope that his untimely death will lead to some good in its wake, alerting people to the danger of “safe” prescription drugs that can kill in combination.
THE “DETECTIVE OF DEATH ”
A coroner whose jurisdiction includes Hollywood will find himself involved in world-famous cases throughout his career. The death of a celebrity inevitably attracts the attention of both the press and the public. But as a medical examiner I often noted a surprising phenomenon. Reporters and journalists who came to call on me appeared to be equally fascinated by the puzzling twists of the little-known forensic cases I had investigated. I became something of a celebrity myself—to my surprise and later regret—as reporters began to refer to me as “the Detective of Death.” A sort of Sherlock Holmes legend was created about me, a legend which culminated in the production of the popular television series, Quincy, supposedly based on my exploits.
In fact there is nothing mysterious or magical about the work of a forensic detective. On rare occasions I have had a flash of insight that led me to the resolution of a case. But even then, as with every other case, the resolution came only after very careful investigation, and was supported by irrefutable forensic facts.
I have often wondered how Sherlock Holmes or any of the many other detectives of fiction would fare as a medical examiner of a large city. There are no dramatic chases, no physical confrontations with cunning criminals. The work, for the most part, is hard and routine, without the glamour and excitement of fictional thrillers. Nevertheless, I have been confronted with cases that might confound the deductive powers of even the great Sherlock Holmes. Truth, in my experience, is always stranger than fiction.
THE MISSING BABY
A mother hysterically called the Los Angeles Police Department to say that her baby was missing. Police went to the home and scoured the grounds, including the swimming pool. When the baby was not found, they suspected a kidnapping. Newspapers printed the story, and for three weeks this case gripped Los Angeles as the anxious parents and the police waited for word from the kidnappers. No word came.
Then one day a torrential rain struck Los Angeles. When the downpour ended, the mother happened to glance out of the kitchen window—and saw her baby floating face down in the swimming pool, dead.
It was a mystery. The police had searched the pool at the time the baby was reported missing and had not seen it. They speculated that a kidnapper had murdered the baby, or it had died while in his keeping, and he had returned to the house and thrown it into the pool.
I performed the autopsy. Forensic clues immediately told me that the baby had been alive when drowned, not murdered beforehand as everyone thought. There was fluid in its lungs which had been inhaled. Also, the baby had what housewives call “dishwater hands”—a wrinkling of the skin caused by moisture which affects blood circulation. Dead bodies have no blood circulation and therefore no “dishwater hands.” This fact also meant the baby had been alive when it went into the pool.
Had the baby been taken back to the pool alive and thrown in? Unlikely as that seemed, there was forensic evidence to back it. I did not think the body was as decomposed as it should have been if it had been submerged for three weeks. But then I noticed another forensic clue—little green clusters on the baby’s white pullover sweatshirt. I called an oceanographic expert, who analyzed the clusters and found that they were algae, underwater organisms that grow on objects. The extent of the growth on the baby’s shirt would have taken twenty days, almost exactly the length of time the baby had been missing. To me, that was definite proof that the baby had been submerged for three weeks. I noticed further that once the baby’s body had been exposed to air, it then began to decompose at an abnormally rapid rate, another sign that death had occurred weeks before.
All the evidence now pointed to an accidental d
rowning. But one troublesome question remained: why had no one discovered the body? I sent an investigator to look at the pool, and we had the answer. The investigator reported that the water in the pool was not clear but murky. Because the police had searched, but not drained, the pool at the time of the baby’s disappearance, they had missed the body. Nor had the mother seen it in her search. Only after torrential rains had stirred up the water in the pool did the body finally rise to the surface.
ALL IN THE SAME BOAT
On a sunny day in the waters off Santa Barbara, a man was rowing a dory from his sailboat toward shore with his wife, his small stepson and their pet dog, enjoying the spectacular views from the sea of cliffside homes and the mountains rising in the distance.
Then, out of sight of the shore, something happened. The man returned to the dock alone with a terrible story to tell. The dog had jumped out of the boat. His little stepson had tried to rescue it and capsized the boat. Both the wife and the boy had been struck by the sharp edges of the craft and had drowned, despite his efforts to save them.
The police who investigated the tragedy were suspicious. But there were no witnesses, and, seemingly, no possible clues. The incident had taken place out at sea, with no other boats in sight. Was it an accident—or the perfect crime? There seemed to be no answer to that question. Furthermore, the suspect, an experienced sailor, was able to fortify his story with data such as the precise momentum of the boat when it capsized, the angle at which it struck the victims, the velocity of the ocean current when he attempted to rescue his wife and stepson, and so forth.
What he didn’t know was forensic pathology.
Every bruise is as individual as a fingerprint. In a crude way, you can create a library of bruise patterns right in your own home. Each sharp edge of a table, a desk or a chair can be catalogued. You simply take a sheet of carbon paper, place it between two blank white sheets, and bang the carbon sandwich sharply against the object.
When I was asked to assist in the investigation of this alleged “perfect crime,” I was immediately interested in the bruises incurred by the victims. My first step was to visit the Coast Guard commander in Santa Barbara who had brought in the bodies. He informed me that the ocean was “stable” on the day of the accident, and it was unlikely that you could capsize such a boat in a calm sea by reaching overboard for a dog.
We found the boat sitting in a drydock, where it had been impounded by police. My request to the commander brought an arched eyebrow. “Could I borrow it for the weekend?”
“You want to take her out on the ocean?”
“Far from it. I want the boat delivered to my apartment in Los Angeles.”
“Your apartment?”
“Right.”
The commander was mystified, but within a few days I had a new piece of furniture in my living room, a boat that seemed as large as a battleship in that space.
Meanwhile, I had obtained magnified photographs of the bruises incurred by the wife and the stepson. The son’s wounds were on the back of the head, low on the skull. The wife’s were on the top. My next step was to obtain mannequins that automobile manufacturers employ in their experiments with car crashes to analyze the strength of their vehicles. I borrowed two of these mannequins, one the size of the small boy, the other that of the woman. Then I began testing.
The wife was easy. On her mannequin, I affixed carbon duplicating paper over the area of the head where her bruise had been located. Then I placed the mannequin sitting upright on a seat in the boat. And finally, to test my theory of murder, I picked up the oar that had been in the boat and struck the mannequin over the head sharply from behind.
A pattern emerged on the duplicating paper. It was identical, when magnified, to the bruise pattern on the wife’s skull.
The case of the little boy was more difficult. He had two bruises, both in an odd place, low on the back of his head. You don’t normally strike someone there. And then I realized, chillingly, what had happened if my theory was correct. The man had disposed of his wife with the oar, but he didn’t need such a weapon to murder the helpless little boy. He had taken his stepson by the ankles, held him upside down, and smashed his head against some hard object.
I made at least two dozen experiments in vain before I found that hard object—a steel seat support on the right side of the boat. The identical bruise patterns emerged when the little mannequin’s head was swung and struck that enforcing bar.
Meanwhile, police had discovered a number of suspicious facts about the man. His previous wife had been found dead, mysteriously floating face down in a hot tub at their home. Further, he had recently purchased a $400,000 life insurance policy on his new wife, plus another $300,000 if death was caused by an accident. It was also alleged that he had collected large insurance payments on suspicious fires that damaged his houseboat and a car.
This evidence, plus the forensic evidence of the origin of the bruises found on the bodies of his wife and his young stepson, resulted in the conviction of the man for murder. And on May 5, 1985, Stanley M. Roden, who was the prosecutor in the case, informed me that an appeal of that conviction had recently been denied.
THE “ACCIDENTAL” LOVER
A young man was found lying flat on his bed, blood oozing from his temple, a .32 pistol on the floor. Soot around the wound indicated that the bullet had been fired from less than three inches away. The revolver bore his fingerprints on its butt. An obvious suicide. Or was it?
The young man’s friends said he had been happy before he died, and had no reason to commit suicide. Could it have been murder? we wondered. On rare occasions a killer arranges a murder to appear to be a suicide, wiping off his own fingerprints from the gun and applying the victim’s fingerprints on its butt. But there again we were stopped, as friends said the young man had no enemies of any kind and was not into drugs or other illegal activities.
Still I was concerned. Why would a healthy, happy young man commit suicide? With some misgivings, we issued a judgment of suicide. But then I received a telephone call from the victim’s young wife, and one of the strangest inquests in my experience resulted. She demanded a public hearing on the cause of death, claiming that it had not been suicide or murder—it was an accident.
When the inquest was convened, the pretty young wife took the stand and testified that she and her husband had been making love when the gun was fired. To say the least, her testimony claimed the attention of the court. She then said her husband had sexual problems. He could not fulfill his function as a lover unless he pointed a loaded gun at his head.
Perilous, but efficient. They had successfully achieved intercourse many times in this fashion, but on the fatal night, in a convulsive seizure of passion, he had accidentally pulled the trigger.
The hearing officer, in one of the most bizarre coroner’s cases in Los Angeles history, believed the wife and ruled the young man’s death accidental.
And we had to amend the death certificate.
THE FUNHOUSE CORPSE
In April 1981 my secretary sent the following letter to Frederick Olds, the director of the Oklahoma Territorial Museum in Guthrie, Oklahoma.
DEAR MR. OLDS:
Hope this helps. I measured Dr. Noguchi’s head and the results were 26¾”.
He has a Stetson Western hat size 7 which is a little tight, and a soft hat, size 7, which is a fairly good fit.
If the above is not sufficient, please let me know.
RITA
This discussion of my hat size had a unique beginning in a “house of horrors,” paradoxically called by its owners a “funhouse.”
In 1976 the producers of the popular television series “The Six Million Dollar Man” decided to stage a suspenseful sequence at the Nu-Pike Funhouse in Long Beach, California, part of a large amusement park. The funhouse was one of the park’s main attractions. In its eerie confines, skeletons sprang from closets, ghosts appeared suddenly in white sheets, and gruesome props of all kinds terrorized the visito
rs who happily paid for the privilege of risking death by heart attack.
The television crewmen who moved in to prepare for the production of “The Six Million Dollar Man” were delighted by these props which would add such color to their show. They particularly liked one of the dummies because it was so unusual. It was a “cowboy,” painted a neon orange, which hung gruesomely from a gallows by a rope. The sign under it said “Oklahoma Badman.” The director decided definitely to use that one, and ordered his crewmen to move it to a location where the film’s action would take place.
Probably no fictional thrill on the television series ever equaled the real shock the crew experienced next. While they were moving the painted dummy, its arm suddenly broke off—and a human bone was revealed! Quickly the police were called, and then the coroner’s office. The owners of the amusement park said they had no idea the dummy was human.
The newspapers had a lot of fun with the story of the prop that turned out to be a real corpse. Nevertheless, we at the coroner’s office had to fulfill our function to investigate an unexplained death. And it was a case unique in our experience, because the body was not only long dead, but mummified. So how to identify him?
The Coroner Series Page 33