Pubdate: Mon, 09 Jul 2001
Source: Elizabethton Star (TN)
Copyright © 1996 - 2001 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc.
Contact: comments to  Kathy Helms-Hughes

AUTOPSIES: A COSTLY NECESSITY OR WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS

On June 27, Glen Murphy Geisler, 28, of Elizabethton, was eating 
dinner with a friend when he complained of feeling ill and said he 
was unable to finish his meal. He lay down on the couch, began 
snoring, and 15 minutes later, stopped breathing. Geisler was taken 
to Sycamore Shoals Hospital where blood was drawn and analyzed by 
medical staff.

Mountain States Health Alliance Laboratory conducted a toxicology 
test which indicated Geisler had Benzodiazepine (similar to Valium), 
cannabinoid (marijuana), cocaine, and opiates in his system.

He was pronounced dead at 1:46 a.m. by Coroner David Nichols. At 2:07 
a.m., Detective Ed McGee was contacted by Capt. Bill Fraley. The 
emergency room physician advised McGee that toxicology results 
indicated a drug overdose.

Capt. Fraley informed him there did not appear to be any foul play. 
Detective McGee then contacted Assistant District Attorney Mark Hill 
to inquire about the possibility of conducting an autopsy and 
provided him with facts surrounding the case and the opinion of the 
physician.

Hill decided an autopsy was not to be conducted. Detective Greg 
Workman was asked to contact Assistant District Attorney Ken Baldwin 
to get his opinion.

Baldwin recommended an autopsy be conducted due to unusual 
circumstances surrounding the death.

An order for autopsy was written by Baldwin, signed by a criminal 
court judge, and issued to Quillen College of Medicine authorizing 
examination of the deceased. The next day, Detective Workman was 
contacted by 911 to respond to 708 Eisenhour St., in reference to 
another death.

Linda Jenkins, 43, told officers that her live-in boyfriend, Jimmy D. 
Taylor, 42, had gone to bed around 9 p.m. She said she went to bed 
around 10:30 and heard Taylor snoring loudly, which was out of the 
ordinary, and that he had been sweating profusely prior to going to 
bed. Jenkins said she awoke at 3 a.m. and Taylor's body was cold. She 
called 911 and administered CPR until Carter County Rescue Squad 
arrived. On inspecting the body, Detective Workman observed needle 
marks on Taylor's left arm, as well as on top of both feet. Jenkins 
was unaware whether Taylor had a drug habit, according to police.

Workman observed marijuana in the area where Taylor was found, as 
well as a syringe needle. Assistant District Attorney Mark Hill was 
notified of the circumstances surrounding death and advised Detective 
Workman that no autopsy was to be conducted. Elizabethton Police 
Chief Roger Deal said he doesn't know whether the two deaths are 
related. "It's very possible it was the same drug involved.

It looks more that way, but I can't say with any surety. ... An 
autopsy was ordered on the first one and on the second one we had 
blood drawn and sent off for toxicology." In the last several years 
in Carter County there have been instances of persons receiving bad 
drugs.

Asked whether it was possible that Geisler's and Taylor's deaths 
might be linked to bad drugs, Deal said, "I would think so. But I'm 
not an expert in the medical field so I don't know." Dr. Gretel 
Harlan, one of two forensic pathologists performing autopsies at 
Quillen College of Medicine, worked with medical examiners in Memphis 
and Nashville before coming to East Tennessee. Based on her 
experience, Harlan said, "If you think it's a drug overdose and no 
obvious cause of death, particularly in a young person where you 
don't have a medical history of something that might have killed them 
and you don't find evidence that might have killed them, we routinely 
did autopsies. "If the family is extremely resistant to having an 
autopsy done, we can still do things like draw samples of urine and 
blood and test that." But the results are not as conclusive, Harlan 
said.

"You know whether or not you've got an overdose.

You don't necessarily know how they got the drug into their system 
and you don't have other things you might need should you find that 
it is a drug overdose and somebody says, 'Well, yes, I provided him 
the drug, but it was because of his terminal cancer.' "If you haven't 
done the autopsy, you don't know whether he's got a terminal cancer 
or whether they're blowing smoke.

That's why, when we do a forensic autopsy, we do a complete autopsy.

We don't decide 'No, we won't look at the head,' because we don't 
know that they're not taking an excess amount of pain medication 
because they're having a cerebral hemorrhage," Harlan said. Autopsy 
costs average around $2,000, she said. They are partially state 
funded and partially county funded. "The cost depends on the case," 
Dr. Harlan said. "We just had one that was an embalmed body 
(Geisler), where doing toxicology is going to be prohibitive, and yet 
we're doing it because they think it is a drug overdose." Dr. Harlan 
said the investigating police agency uses either the District 
Attorney General's Office or the county medical examiner to write an 
order for autopsy. "Unless it's going to result in charges against 
somebody -- something they could prosecute -- (the District 
Attorney's Office) doesn't really want to get involved." Autopsies 
generally are not ordered in deaths that result from obvious medical 
conditions, she said, such as a person with an extensive history of 
heart trouble who goes into cardiac arrest.

By not conducting autopsies in such cases, the DA's office saves 
taxpayers money. Assistant District Attorney Baldwin said the 
decision to order an autopsy is a judgment call on the person to whom 
the request is made. "You don't want to order an autopsy on a case 
unless it has a potential for criminal activity having caused the 
death.

The only reason we order autopsies is to prove that the cause of 
death was by virtue of some criminal activity.

In a case of suicide, you don't need one, and it makes families 
distraught to have their loved one dissected," Baldwin said. "It is a 
form of murder to supply drugs to someone," he said. "If you can 
determine who supplied the individual with the drugs on which they 
overdosed, it's a form of homicide -- second-degree murder." Ralph 
McDaniels "Mack" Myers, 47, 115 Bluefield Ave., was indicted May 1 on 
second-degree murder charges following the death of Justin Vanover, 
23, 327 S. Lynn Ave. Autopsy results indicated Vanover died from a 
methadone overdose.

Myers is accused of supplying the methadone. Vanover's girlfriend, 
Felicia English Younce, 19, Greenwood Drive, Johnson City, also was 
indicted by the grand jury on a charge of criminal negligent homicide 
after she allegedly delayed in getting Vanover medical attention. "In 
that kind of case, you've got to prove by virtue of the autopsy, that 
they died as a result of the drug overdose and not some other cause.

That's some elementary evidence you've got to have," Baldwin said, 
before the District Attorney's Office can bring charges. Carter 
County Sheriff John Henson said he believes an autopsy should be 
ordered in any unexplained death, especially in those involving young 
people. "If you don't know what killed that person, you don't know 
whether there's been a crime committed or not. If you don't have that 
autopsy, you can't prosecute unless you've got the evidence to back 
it up," he said. Chief Deal said, "What we want to do as far as 
Elizabethton Police Department is make sure we're not requesting 
unnecessary autopsies, but on the same hand, we want to be sure that 
if there is any suspicion, that we pass that information on to the 
Attorney General or his assistant. "(Autopsies) are expensive, we 
realize that, but you can't go shooting in the dark. You need to have 
a little bit of evidence, or suspicion anyway, that would warrant 
autopsies. "I don't want to wash any potential evidence aside just to 
observe a cost-measuring safety, because I think sometimes we can 
shortchange ourselves by watching pennies.

Everybody would suffer -- the whole criminal justice system. "On the 
other hand, I don't want to waste taxpayer dollars on things we don't 
need. You've got to look at it from an investigative view, 
level-headed, and just try to do what's right."
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