Coroner's Journal: Forensics and the Art of Stalking Death

by Louis Cataldie

  When we saved a life, there was jubilation. When we lost, we simply drifted away from the deceased and never really processed it from an emotional perspective. Some of us would drink over it later at the nearby Fleur de Lys Lounge. The ER also proved to be a good training ground for exposure to the criminal elements in the city. Those folks just tend to get beat up and shot—a lot. We also handled drownings, child abuse, accidents, motor vehicle crashes, and suicide attempts. During this dawning era of designer drugs, angel dust, or PCP, was plentiful, and drug overdoses and “bad trips” were also commonplace.

  Unfortunately, my own propensity for “all-or-nothing” behavior resulted in a short time in therapy, to get my own head back on straight. It was a good thing. I have been free of addiction for twenty-six years now. In addition to being one of the founders of the Physician Health Plan for Louisiana, I am also the consulting medical director for the state’s Office of Addictive Disorders. I hope my experience helped break the family curse.

  Though my official title was Physician Executive in Charge of Medical Affairs for the Psychiatric Division, I stayed active in the actual practice of medicine.

  One day I took a break from rounds for a cup of coffee in the doctors’ lounge of the Baton Rouge General Hospital, when I was approached by a doctor with the unusual name of Hypolite Landry. He was the coroner for East Baton Rouge Parish, and he needed a deputy coroner. During our talk, he reminded me that in Louisiana, the coroner is responsible not only for death investigations but also for mental health commitments. I liked the mental health part, or so I thought at the time, and took the job as deputy coroner right there on the spot.

  My expectations burst one morning in June 1993, at about one A.M., a few days after I had impulsively taken the job. The answering service called me to report a death. I picked up on the second or third ring—years of being on call made me a light sleeper. At first I thought it was the hospital calling me about one of my patients. No—this was the coroner’s office service. I was informed that no one else was answering their pages, so it fell to me. I ran out the door completely unprepared for what I would see next.

  The deceased was a gunshot victim out on Airline Highway, which runs north-south through Baton Rouge and continues another hundred miles down to New Orleans. My directions were simply that it was near the fairgrounds. I was almost out of the parish by the time I came upon the flashing blue lights. When I arrived at the scene I had to identify myself. The “gatekeeper” looked somewhat puzzled and responded as such:

  “What got you out, Doc? Nobody else around? It’s down there. Which funeral home you want me to call?”

  Now it was my turn to be puzzled. I had no idea about which funeral home to call. So I was flagged through to where the body lay. Once I got within range of the body, a detective began waving his arms and yelling for me to stop. Again I was puzzled. When I got out of the car he told me which path to take to the body.

  He was trying to make sure I didn’t bumble into the scene and mess up the evidence. That feeling of being ill prepared was rapidly turning into embarrassment, and I started to feel really dumb. You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy—nor are you in Colfax, Lou! I was getting my first lesson in crime-scene etiquette. It would be the first of many.

  I introduced myself to the detective and then we just sort of looked at each other. Obviously there was some expectation here.

  He broke the silence. “Hell, just a hundred more yards and he’d be in the next parish and I’d be having breakfast at the Waffle House. I guess it’s too late to drag him across the line.”

  I stared at him. He pointed to the corpse.

  That was a joke, dumb-ass.

  “Looks like a gunshot to the head. We pretty much know what happened. Shot over the P-word,” he said, referring to the vernacular for the female-gender-specific body part. It was an accepted truth in this business: men tend to shoot other men over women. It’s an ego issue, often exacerbated by alcohol, and it goes by a lot of names—possessiveness, insecurity, lust, love, pride, false pride, male stupidity, power trip.

  “You want me to dispatch a funeral home?” the detective asked.

  I was essentially lost. I decided to just come clean with the detective. “Look, I’m new out here. What do you need me to do?”

  He didn’t seem that surprised. I was like a calf looking at a new gate—what now?

  The detective turned out to be a good guy and told me the coroner usually examines the body, turns it over for them to take some pictures, gets the ID off the deceased, and calls the funeral home. Then the next day the office calls the police and tells them when the autopsy is going to be done. That’s it. The expectations on the part of the police of the coroner were limited, to say the least.

  Even to my naïve way of thinking, that didn’t seem to be what coronering was all about. But I went through the motions and called the funeral home—white funeral home for white victims, black funeral home for black victims. The funeral home would take the body to the Charity Hospital for autopsy. I later found out that I was to call the pathologist at Charity to get a time. I was not to call him at night—rather strange, but hey, that’s the gig, Jack!

  The victim had a gunshot wound to the right side of his head. There was no exit. That’s about the extent of what I had to offer.

  The police would later chalk the motive of this murder up to a woman. Police, who knew the deceased, Jerry David Dixon, twenty-two, picked up the suspect, Robert Lee Duke, not long after. Duke said he shot Dixon in the head after Dixon confronted Duke and his girlfriend, Ann Marie Tuccio, in a pickup truck on Airline Highway. Dixon had a former relationship with Tuccio, police said.

  Duke was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying, but a jury convicted him in 1994 on the lesser charge of manslaughter. He is currently awaiting his appeal.

  An interesting side note that came out during the trial was that Tuccio, in her testimony, reported having nine separate personalities. These ranged from that of a five-year-old girl to that of a topless dancer. After Duke’s conviction, she was charged with being an accessory after the fact. She pleaded not guilty.

  That was my first murder in Baton Rouge, but I knew that I would be better prepared next time around. There were many next times, for Baton Rouge would live up to its gory name.

  THREE

  Forensics 101

  DO THE RIGHT THING

  I felt I had a handle on the mental health duties of the job, but the realm of death investigation was intimidating. I was still smarting from the lesson in humility I’d gotten out on Airline Highway. To correct that deficiency, I attended every training seminar I could find and afford. I read forensics textbooks voraciously and went to just about every homicide crime scene in Baton Rouge.

  One of the most helpful things I learned was crime-scene etiquette. A pearl of wisdom came from an older homicide detective, now retired. It had been passed down to him years before by his senior partner. “When you go through a crime scene for the first time, keep your hands in your pockets.” He laughed when he said it, but it was no joke. “That does two things: it shows you’re not stealing anything or planting evidence, and it shows you’re not contaminating the scene.”

  That makes sense.

  I sought out experts in every forensics field, and I was a sponge for their knowledge and experience. The crime-scene officers taught me how to collect evidence and examine latent fingerprints from corpses. We used alternative light sources to look for trace fibers and hairs as well as body fluids. I also learned about forensic photography and how to take casts of shoeprints.

  Dr. C. Lamar Meek, a forensic entomologist and renowned mosquito expert who happened to teach at LSU, coached me on the valuable information insects can tell us, and the best ways to collect them. I was amazed to learn that maggots from a corpse can be put into a blender and made into a slurry—pathologists call it “the maggot milkshake”—that can tell us if the deceased was a drug user, and what drug was used. S
ome flies, he went on, prefer the dark recesses of an unlit room, while others prefer the sunny outdoors. So a corpse recovered indoors with the larvae that live in outdoor locales indicates that someone moved the body.

  An internationally regarded forensic anthropologist at LSU, Mary Manheim, also known as “The Bone Lady,” taught me how skeletonized remains can tell us who they are from dental X-rays. Scrutiny of bones may also reveal knife nicks and indicate cause of death. Pattern impressions from skull fractures can tell us a lot about the murder weapon.

  The crime lab tutored me about DNA and sex crime investigation, and basic forensic techniques in hair and fingernail analysis, as well as ballistics. I have been with them in the field on several occasions; most recently during the hunt for a serial killer.

  Arson investigators gave me a priceless education about hot spots and how to reconstruct a fire—how to read “alligator wood” and other signs of pattern burning. Important to know, as murderers sometimes use fires to conceal their crimes. More important, I learned how we could reveal those attempts. That skill set came in handy several times.

  When I became coroner, there was no such thing as a seamless chain of custody for the bodies. They were simply picked up by whatever funeral home we could get to come to the scene. Much to my chagrin, the funeral home even had to supply the body bag at times. It was essentially a community service on their part, and they ran the risk of never getting paid for their services. When I was a deputy coroner, I went alone to crime scenes, but afterward I began taking someone with me.

  Unbelievable as it might seem, the state’s capital city did not have a coroner’s morgue. Autopsies were done at a local hospital. There was no real security there. What’s more, the pathologists were employees of the hospitals, which opened up conflict-of-interest situations. Eventually, we established a seamless chain of custody, and my staff began picking up the deceased in our own coroner vans. We built our own morgue in the form of a Medical Disaster Unit (a trailer). We have our own forensic pathologist and a new forensics facility is near completion.

  As chief deputy coroner, I was eventually persuaded to assume the position of coroner when the old coroner retired. I won a special election and was unopposed in the following regular election, and here I am right now. I’ve been here ten years. But . . . why do it? I’ve pondered this a great deal. In the end I always come up with the same answer: Because it’s a job that’s got to be done, and done right.

  RATS

  In my three years as deputy coroner, I learned a quick lesson in crime-solving: criminals talk. Before I got into the coroner business I never really gave this a whole lot of thought. This basic concept was brought home to me just as I was becoming a full-fledged coroner in 1996, and it has proven true over time.

  Shelia was admitted to Earl K. Long Hospital (EKL) and died there. For whatever reason, her physician did not deem her death worthy of investigation by the coroner. He subsequently released her body to a funeral home and handled the death certificate himself. The manner of death was reported to be natural causes. If it were anything other than that, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the coroner. A funeral was held for Shelia, she was duly buried, and that seemed to be the end of it.

  In police jargon, a “rat” is a person who will “give up” another person in order to cut a deal. The deal usually involves getting a reduced sentence for a crime the rat has committed. Now, it’s an old police trick to put a suspect into a cell with a “rat.” The suspect tries to impress the rat with his exploits. The rat is impressed, encourages the suspect to spill his guts, and then the rat snitches to the cops. You’d think the suspects would catch on, but evidently many do not. How stupid do you have to be to trust secrets to another jailbird?

  At any rate, somebody who was considered a “reliable” informant ratted out Jimmy Jones over Shelia’s death. The rat had enough specifics to come to the attention of the homicide division. I don’t know where the rat got his information. The rat claimed Jimmy had strangled the girl over cocaine. She was with Jimmy in a well-known sleazy “crack” motel in North Baton Rouge. A real rathole, where you would expect to rent by the hour. They had been doing crack for the better part of a day. The drug use was interspersed with the ingestion of beer. The rat even knew the room number and the brand of the beer.

  According to the rat, Jimmy and Shelia argued over who was hogging the crack. Surprisingly, pound per pound of body weight, women can often consume more cocaine that their male counterparts. This is because women tend to have more of an enzyme that inactivates the cocaine. You don’t have to be a physiologist to know this—just ask any crack head on the street.

  Cocaine tends to do lots of things in addition to making the user feel good. As the run continues, agitation and paranoia set in. For whatever reason, Jimmy reportedly took off his bandana, wet it in the sink and sneaked up behind Shelia and twisted the bandana around her neck. Having done that, he tied the bandana back on his head and did the rest of the coke. I have never known an addict to willingly leave any cocaine on the table.

  Jimmy then left her for dead, but somebody found her and realized she was still alive and anonymously called 911. The emergency medical techs responded to the motel room. She was resuscitated and rushed to EKL, where she was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit, and died.

  EKL is a charity hospital that dates back to the Huey Long legacy. It is a faded gray structure that has seen better days. Since it is a teaching hospital, the residents handle the brunt of the medical work and patient loads. I am not sure how Shelia’s death slipped through the cracks and was not reported to us. I suspect she had several overworked physicians attending to her and the “on call” doctor pronounced her dead without knowing the strangulation history.

  I first heard of her death from the police. Based on the informant’s report, the Baton Rouge homicide detectives got an order of exhumation. Their next call was to the coroner’s office—I was deputy at the time. Burying a loved one is hard enough; having that loved one dug up and autopsied causes even more pain. So several months after her death, Shelia’s casket was exhumed under the guidance of the office and was brought to the State Crime Lab for opening and for autopsy.

  As I said earlier, Baton Rouge did not have a parish morgue. Amazing—because no morgue means no chain of custody. I cannot imagine getting a death sentence with contaminated evidence, but evidently it had never been challenged. It’s the way we had always done it! The office was a travesty in my humble opinion. I was there to witness it and to learn.

  You never really know what to expect when a coffin lid is opened. We all brace ourselves for the worst. Fortunately, the funeral home had done a good job on her corpse. As one detective opined, “She looked fresh.” I had expected the stench of decomposition, but we were spared.

  She was removed from the coffin and placed on a stainless-steel gurney, which was to serve as the autopsy table. But the cause of death seemed apparent right away. As soon as I saw the embalmed corpse, I knew she had been strangled. The strangulation marks around her neck were blatant. It should be noted that bruises often appear more prominent after a body is embalmed. I was surprised the embalmer missed it. I was surprised the corpse’s makeup artist missed it. I was surprised the physician missed it. There was ample opportunity to catch it.

  Shelia was reinterred after the autopsy.

  Much to Jimmy Jones’s surprise and chagrin, he was charged with her murder. He thought he had gotten away with it. EKL got a letter from the coroner’s office on reporting requirements. Although justice was belated, the victim did get a new death certificate that listed the cause of death as strangulation and the manner of death as homicide.

  I learned a lot about informants from that death investigation, and that talk is (not always) cheap. The sight of the marks on the embalmed neck of the victim preoccupied my mind for a while. I get that 3-D image of her even now as I write this. How many have we missed like this one?

  RAT DOG

&nbs
p; I happened to drive by it today, the house on Tenth Street, in the northern part of Baton Rouge, just under the interstate. It had been gutted by fire. It won’t be long until it gets torn down, and it won’t be missed. At least not from what I could tell when it first came to my attention—just a typical run-down shotgun shack.

  But it once housed the nightmare of elderly neglect. I entered that nightmare one night in 1998 in response to a call from uniformed police that they had a death of an elderly black female at that residence.

  The house was unassuming enough as I drove up in the vehicle I had come to know as the “Green Hornet,” a faded green Ford Crown Victoria—very used—with a “police interceptor” package, which basically means beefed-up suspension and brakes and a bigger engine.

  When I got up to the porch, a uniformed officer briefed me. He told me there was an old lady who had died in her bed. One of her sons had found her and called EMS, who arrived on the scene and determined that she had been dead for several hours. So I was called. The son said she had been sick a long time. EMS said they knew her from previous calls and that she had significant medical problems, including Alzheimer’s disease. Seemed simple, but the officer had some concerns about something he had observed on her left forehead. He also told me there was no light in the bedroom and just one bulb working in the living room. This was a bad omen. I went back to my unit and got a powerful flashlight and an AC “trouble light.”