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Dr. Baden Q & A -- Live Chat - July 9, 2005
HBO: Welcome to our live chat with renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, host of HBO's hugely popular
Autopsy documentary series. Dr. Baden is happy to answer your questions about tonight's Autopsy special, or
general questions on the subject of forensic science.
Dr. Baden: One thing I've learned during the ten years I've been working with HBO on the Autopsy series is
that all death is local. Just like all politics is local, all death is local. If a family is unhappy with the way
the local officials have determined what the cause of death is, the family has very little recourse other than
hiring a lawyer and starting an adversarial legal challenge. That's the reason, I believe, that literally
thousands of people have written in to HBO because they have no other alternatives, and HBO has become a sort of
court of last resort for many families. What we've tried to do in this new approach to showing how forensics can
help solve how people die is to do our own investigations into many of the cases that have been sent to us. What
we've seen tonight are just two of many deaths that we've investigated and brought to resolution.
R Scott: How do you pick the stories you tell?
Dr. Baden: A staff of HBO reviewers sort through the emails and bring to me the questions that seem to be
most interesting and challenging. I then review the questions and advise the HBO staff what additional materials I
would need to be able to help answer the questions that are raised, such as autopsy reports and police reports,
microscopic slides, etc. That's how we start. If I can then determine I can be of some help, we continue and get
additional information and do our own testing.
Panthercat: What was the most horrific body condition you ever found while performing an autopsy?
Dr. Baden: The most horrific cases usually have to do with children who are pure innocents in violent
death. I've seen a child die of a ruptured stomach because the mom had fed her sodium hydroxide as punishment.
That burnt a hole in the stomach and caused intensive painful infection. That comes to mind. We've had a child who
died because the boyfriend forced the child to swallow ground pepper as punishment, and the ground pepper not only
caused pain in the mouth and windpipe, but completely plugged up the lungs so the child couldn't breathe It's
amazing what bad things can be done to children. The most horrible types of findings that most medical examiners
have is the evil that's done to children.
Panthercat: When did you first know you would get into autopsies and advance to a TV special?
Dr. Baden: Back in 1989-90, I wrote a book called "Unnatural Death, Confessions of a Medical Examiner" that
tried to explain to the public what medical examiners do and how forensic science is used to solve crimes.
Somebody at HBO read the book and thought it would be appropriate for a special program on forensic science. (This
was back in the days before "CSI" and the other forensic shows.) I was flattered to do the program because I
thought this would provide information to a bigger audience than had read my book as to the importance of forensic
science. The response to that first HBO program in 1994, which was supposed to be a single episode, was so great
and there was so much interest by the public that HBO has continued to do a program every year, culminating in
this last one that you just saw. It was really the response to the first program in 1994 that gave me some
indication that explaining forensic science on television was a great way to communicate with the public and
impress on them the importance and value of forensic science.
Scott: Do you have any reservations regarding your testimony in the Ted Binion case?
Dr. Baden: No. The Ted Binion case refers to a death of the owner of Binion's Horseshoe Inn in Las Vegas.
My testimony was that he died of suffocation, and I have no reservations.
Mdren760: I am currently in school to be a funeral director/embalmer, but am interested in being a county coroner.
What can I do to prepare myself for this?
Dr. Baden: In general, in about half the US, the investigation of unnatural death is directed by coroners.
The other half are medical examiners who are physicians. Most coroners are funeral directors, because they're the
individuals who know a lot about the dead body and know how to relate to families after a loved one has died,
which is extremely important in any investigation. If you're in a jurisdiction in which the coroner does the death
investigation, your training as a funeral director is very appropriate and in those jurisdictions that have
coroners, the coroner then has to know what pathologist in the region he or she can turn to if an autopsy is
required.
TexasTrixie: I enjoyed your show as always! Thank you Dr. Baden! Have there been any further updates on either
case?
Dr. Baden: Thank you. There are further investigations proceeding as to the death of Mary Jane Gooding and
hopefully there may be someone in the viewing audience who may have some information that can shed further light
on her death. But as of now, the information on the death of the three babies and of Mary Jane Gooding is pretty
well up to date as you saw on the television tonight. Hopefully in the future, we can give you additional
information if there are further developments.
CSIwannabe: How old can bones be under normal embalming conditions to still be able to get a DNA sample?
Dr. Baden: The human body is remarkable, and bones are extremely remarkable when it comes to DNA. A few
years ago, a man who died 5000 years ago was found in the Austrian alps. DNA was able to be extracted from his
bones and tissues, both mitochondrial DNA and regular nuclear DNA. It is possible to get DNA and commonly DNA is
obtained from bones that are many hundreds of years old, except if they've been cremated because the cremation
temperatures (over 500 degrees F.) destroy DNA.
Cougster: The story about the woman who disappeared was very troubling. Was the "suspect" ever arrested?
Dr. Baden: Nobody has been arrested in the death of Mary Jane Gooding.
Jo: I would like to know what was your proudest case you worked on?
Dr. Baden: The proudest case I worked on was in the late 1970s when I was asked to be the Chairman of the
Forensic Pathology Panel which was part of the US Congress Select Committee on Assassinations when I
reinvestigated the deaths of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. I was especially proud of being
able to figure out, after looking at all the evidence available, that President Kennedy was shot twice and only
twice from behind, from where Lee Harvey Oswald was found in the Texas Book Depository. The autopsy, of course,
can't tell if anybody else was involved with that shooting, but it clearly showed that President Kennedy was
struck twice and only twice by two bullets from behind.
Fred75fl: Dr. Baden, have you ever worked a serial murder case and if so which one?
Dr. Baden: Yes, I've been involved in serial murders. One of the early ones was Son of Sam in New York in
the early 1970s, but also with serial murder cases in Kansas and Texas. And most importantly, in hospitals where
health care persons have killed many patients and had gotten away it for a time. These include such murderers as
Dr. Swango, Nurse Gilbert, and others.
Amber: Is there a possibility of finding a cause of death after a person has been cremated?
Dr. Baden: The cause of death would have to be determined by the circumstances and whatever examinations
were done during life, such as hospital records if the individual had been hospitalized. I've been involved with
cases in which after cremation, we were able to find hair from the decedent at the decedent's residence that
showed that she'd been poisoned with arsenic because the hair stores many poisons and drugs that now can be found
by toxicologists.
Sean McLaughlin: Dr. Baden, in regards to the infamous Karla Homolka (featured in Autopsy 9) getting released this
week, do you have any final thoughts about that particular case from a forensic position? I recently read that
upon the exhumation of the torso of Leslie Mahaffy, that there were small, circular bruises on the shoulder blades
pointing towards Karla, perhaps kneeling on her back to smother her. Any thoughts?
Dr. Baden: Yes. The forensic pathologist determines what happened.. The police determine whodunnit, and the
prosecutors and judges determine sentencing. The situation with Karla Homolka was that certain agreements had been
made in order to prosecute the case that resulted in her getting a more lenient sentence than she would have
otherwise. Some of those agreements were made before the full extent of her involvement was known.
000Holly: When my mother died, I went to the bathroom where she was and she was having what others told me was the
death rattle. My question is, did she hear me scream when I found her?
Dr. Baden: Probably not. Usually what's referred to as the death rattle is very coarse breathing after loss of
consciousness, and the windpipe and epiglottis can make noise under those circumstances. Usually the individual
has lost consciousness before that happens and would not be experiencing any conscious pain or suffering.
Bruce: Was the interview of Ron Roberts conducted in such a way that it could be used as part of an official
prosecution?
Dr. Baden: That would have to depend on the prosecutor's decision if it ever came to a prosecution. But
right now there is no prosecution contemplated.
TexasTrixie: In the first case, do you believe the older boy could have suffocated the babies too? Did you
consider that as one theory at all?
Dr. Baden: That's a very good question because older children can harm and kill newborns. Yes, I looked
into that possibility, but clearly with the twins, he was not present in the area where he could have suffocated
the babies. Usually when older children harm newborn babies, it's by striking the baby or blunt force trauma which
can cause death sometimes, and not by the more subtle means of suffocation. We were able to exclude Jacob, the
older boy, from being involved in the deaths of any of the three babies, but certainly that had to be considered.
Gromit: Has the growing interest in forensic science by the general public made your job more difficult? Are
homicides becoming more difficult to detect?
Dr. Baden: The first thing that has happened is that prosecutors' jobs have become more difficult because
juries that are now more educated by the forensic shows they see on TV have come to expect more evidence than they
have seen in the past. Jurors are especially desirous of having DNA evidence presented, even if the DNA evidence
is unrelated to the death. And often, prosecutors will ask to have DNA analyses done even though it's irrelevant
so they can present it to the jurors. This is one of the reasons that there's such a backlog in DNA laboratories
in getting work done. It's also one of the paradoxical reasons that as forensic science, toxicology, hair analysis
etc. have improved so dramatically, the solve rate for murders has decreased. When I started as a medical examiner
in NYC in the 1960s, the solve rate in murders was about 80-85 percent. Now it's gone down to about 60 percent
across the country. Part of that has to do with juror expectation.
B5forever: I am a new Deputy Coroner. How do I answer the families' question as to whether the death was a painful
death or not?
Dr. Baden: "Did my loved one suffer?" is the most common question that coroners and medical examiners are
asked, whether the loved one has died from natural causes or from trauma. In general, what I've tried to do is
give the benefit of the doubt always to dying more quickly and more painlessly to ease the burden of the next of
kin on the day or day after the death has occurred. But a few years later when these cases come to trial, it's the
most amazing thing that the lawyers for the families now want as much time of pain and suffering as possible
because the amount of the monetary award in civil cases is often dependent on how long the pain and suffering was.
So it's hard to be consistent in answering that question, but in the past I've preferred to ease the living
peoples' pain and suffering by giving as minimum a time of the decedent's pain as possible.
Deb: Dear Dr. Baden, great show. Is it possible in the last story that she could have been strangled or knocked
unconscious, and yet no trauma detected? ( I know you said that her hyoid bone was missing). Also, is there any
statute of limitations for homicide in regards to her former husband if he was to be found guilty?
Dr. Baden: It should be clear that right now, the death certificate in Marysville, CA says that the death
was an accident. Remember, there are five manners of death - Natural, Accident, Suicide, Homicide (NASH), and
Undetermined. Mary Jane Gooding's death has been classified as an accident in Marysville, CA. There is no statute
of limitations on murder, but there is on such classifications as manslaughter. When we say "homicide" as a
medical examiner, that just means that one person died at the hands of another. Whether that is a crime such as
murder or manslaughter, or not a crime, such as justifiable homicide or self-defense depends on the prosecutor's
determination. The issue about not finding the hyoid bone or larynx is correct - if Mary Jane Gooding had been
strangled, it usually causes damage to those bones in the neck. We would not be able to make that diagnosis
because of the absence of those pertinent bones.
Ann G: How do you determine suicide vs. homicide, if the manner of death is single stab wound to the chest with no
hesitation marks?
Dr. Baden: If there's a single stab wound to the chest, or a single gunshot wound to the head, or injuries
from falling out of a window in a tall building, or drowning, the autopsy findings can be the same whether it's
homicide or suicide or even accident. So the pathologist determines the cause of death. The manner of death is
determined also by the pathologist, relying on other information obtained from police, doctors, neighbors, and
relatives such as was the person depressed, had the person attempted suicide before, was the person under
psychiatric care, were there suicide notes. All those factors come into the coroner or medical examiner's
determination of whether the same gunshot wound or stab wound was intentionally self-inflicted or caused by
another person.
Russ: Dr. Baden, do you have an explanation for the fact that bones were missing on the second victim's right
side?
Dr. Baden: Yes, that's partly because there were breaks in the windshield of the car and fish had gone in
and out of the car. In fact, we did find the skeleton of a very large fish also in the car. Fish and crabs and
other maritime creatures can remove bones and chew bones to small fragments. And the water itself over 20 years
causes bones to dissolve, so that the calcium and other minerals of bones dissolves in the water. How the bones
dissolve often depends on the position of the body under the water, which part of the body is against the ground
which is unprotected by coverings (soil or clothing). Also it's sometimes hard in removing the vehicle to keep all
the bones intact. So there are many innocent reasons that not all the bones were recovered.
Rxrus94: Hi Dr. Baden. I had a question about toxicological analysis of adipocere. I was not aware that tox tests
could be done on adipocere. Are there any special procedures that need to be done to do tox analysis on adipocere?
Also, would it be possible after all of that time (20 years) to detect volatile substances such as alcohol in
adipocere?
Dr. Baden: No. Once decomposition sets in, alcohol can no longer be determined and things like cyanide can
no longer be determined either. But most drugs and poisons stay in the tissue because adipocere is not usually
examined for drugs. Special tests were done at National Medical Services which is a private nationwide toxicology
laboratory that examined the adipocere for drugs - cocaine, heroin, barbiturates. The drugs would not go away
easily, but the alcohol would so it would not be able to be evaluated.
Kansas Girl: Do you have trouble getting other law enforcement agencies to let you look at their cases?
Dr. Baden: That's one of the limiting factors in investigating cases that family members have contacted HBO
about. If the local police department is totally uncooperative, there may be nothing we can do to help. In the
instances shown tonight, the London, Ontario medical examiner's office and the pathologists involved were very
cooperative, very helpful, and I was able to discuss with the coroner and forensic pathologist their findings.
They spent a lot of time investigating the three deaths, and that's why we were able to do other investigations
such as the polygraph and the genetic study that hadn't been done. The Marysville sheriff's office was also very
cooperative. But if there's a lack of cooperation, then we run into the same problem as the family runs into where
they are unhappy with a result and can't have it tested further.
Theresa: Will you do a followup show on the case of Mary Jane Gooding?
Dr. Baden: If we're able to gather any more information, yes, we will certainly communicate it in our next
program.
Marc FTL: Who is the most famous person you had to perform an autopsy on?
Dr. Baden: As I mentioned earlier, the most famous persons whose autopsies I reviewed were President John
Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King. I didn't do the actual autopsies for them, however. I did go to Russia, to
actually do autopsies on the Romanov family - Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their children - in the early
1990s when their mostly skeletal remains had been found and there were issues to the proper identification and
cause of death of the bodies. We were able to prove that the bodies were those of Nicholas and Alexandra and the
Romanov family, although Anastasia and Alexei were not there because their remains were burned. These autopsies
were done under the leadership of the late Dr. William Maples, forensic anthropologist, forensic dentist Dr.
Lowell Levine, and forensic criminalist Kathy Levine.
Deadly Lokita: How can you determine what was wrong with a person that has been dead for years and only bones
remained?
Dr. Baden: If there are any injuries to the bones, we can find that after many years. I've been involved
with examining bones that were found at illegal burial sites or in the woods, in which bullet wounds of the skull
or stab wounds of the ribs, for example, were readily apparent and helped determine the cause of death even though
there were no soft tissues remaining.
Loving Daughter: How do you stay emotionally separated from the cases, or do you?
Dr. Baden: Interestingly, I was much more emotionally involved with living patients I treated when I was an
internist at Bellevue Hospital in New York because of the relationship I developed with people who were in pain
and dying and my frustration in not being able to prevent the deaths. As a forensic pathologist, I'm almost always
involved with persons after they die so the people I examine or do autopsies on are no longer in pain or
suffering. That's easier for me to deal with. What I have the responsibility of doing is to find out from the dead
body information that can help the living relatives who are in pain come to some closure as to the death of the
loved one, and in the case of murder, to help society identify and punish the perpetrator.
Amy Olga: My son died in 1991 at six weeks of age. After a year of "Pending SIDS" his cause of death was changed
to "Bilateral Congenital Malformation of the Thalamic region of the Brain." What sort of things could have caused
this?
Dr. Baden: The kind of brain abnormality that you described is what's called a congenital abnormality that
your baby was unfortunately born with. There are many reasons why congenital abnormalities occur, most of which we
don't know. Some have to do with injuries or certain medications while pregnant that can cause certain
abnormalities in the developing child, including brain abnormalities. But your pediatrician should be able to
explain to you whether or not there was any known cause for the specific abnormality that your baby suffered from.
Often in autopsies, the brain is not examined for a month after death while it fixes and hardens in formaldehyde
solution so the first diagnosis of death, like SIDS, may be changed and accounts for the difference in opinion as
to the cause of the death.
Love Your Show: While performing an autopsy, has anything made you take a step back and say "WOW"?
Dr. Baden: Oh yes. Each of us is more of a miracle than going to the moon or going to Mars or looking at
other galaxies, all of which are miracles to me. But the human body is the most miraculous to me. Every time I do
an autopsy and see how the heart and lungs connect, or how the tissue of the brain helps me wiggle my big toe
because of all the connections in the body, it's a miracle how this all developed. I think the inside of the body
always makes me go "WOW!"
Dean: What is one of the oldest cases you have handled?
Dr. Baden: From time to time, we'll have bodies recovered during the building of a mall for example, in
which skeletal remains are found and we track back to find there was a cemetery there 200 years before. We do find
bones like that, and it's important to tell that they're very old and not of current legal interest, like bones
from a recent homicide. One of the oldest cases I've been involved with that came to trial was the exhumation of
Medgar Evers 28 years after he had died. He had been shot in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963, a few months before
President Kennedy was shot. I was able to exhume the body and find certain injuries that led to a conviction for
murder 30 years later of Byron DeLaBeckwith who had been in charge of the local White Citizens' Council.
Brattybratt: How many autopsies do you think you have done?
Dr. Baden: I've personally done more than 20,000 medical/legal autopsies.
Penny: When are you going to write another book?
Dr. Baden: My wife Linda Kenney (a trial attorney) and I have just finished a forensic thriller that's
going to be published August 15. It's called "Remains Silent" and we tried to combine law and forensic science in
looking into a fascinating case that actually happened in New York State and involved the whole country. It's
presented in fiction form.
Kitty73990: What has been your most puzzling unsolved case?
Dr. Baden: The most upsetting cases are those persons that I think have been wrongly convicted. There was a
puzzling case in Boston involving a man named Roy McGraw who was convicted of killing his wife. I had reviewed all
the autopsy findings and microscopic slides and clearly she died of a massive infection of the heart and I so
testified in court. But the jury found him guilty of murder, which had never occurred. When a person dies of
natural causes but someone is convicted of a murder, this really upsets me and has to do often with the
over-zealousness of prosecutors. There are occasionally wrongful convictions, and if DNA is involved that can
sometimes help exonerate the individual. But in 85 percent of murders, there's no DNA involved. If anyone out
there has a concern that someone has been wrongfully convicted, we will look into that. Submit it to us online,
and we will look into it and see if anything can be done to correct the mistake, if a mistake has been made.
HBO: Thank you for this wonderful chat! Unfortunately we are almost out of time - do you have any parting words
for us?
Dr. Baden: Thank you all for your interest. If anyone has additional information on the two cases
presented, or on any other disturbing matters that we can look into, please don't hesitate to submit the
information to us online.
HBO: That's all the time we have for tonight. Thank you for participating in our live chat with Autopsy host, Dr.
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