Epstein death puts renowned pathologist back in spotlight
NEW YORK (AP) — He testified for O.J. Simpson’s defense, helped investigate the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., hosted an HBO show and brought his pathology expertise to bear on celebrity deaths and police killings.
Now Dr. Michael Baden is enmeshed in another high- stakes case, as the private pathologist who observed Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy on his lawyers’ behalf.
The death of the wellconnected financier in a jail cell muddied a closely watched sex-trafficking conspiracy case and trained scrutiny on the federal prison system. Epstein’s accusers, the attorney general, politicians and others are demanding answers. But if Baden is stepping into a maelstrom, it’s a familiar spot for a scientist accustomed to the spotlight.
“Even when an autopsy is done, the speculation doesn’t stop” when the well-known die, Baden wrote in his 1990 book “Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner.” But an autopsy, he wrote, is “part of the process of finding the truth.”
Neither Baden nor the New York City medical examiner’s office has released any findings from Epstein’s autopsy, conducted Sunday. Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson, whose office Baden led decades ago, called it “routine practice” for private pathologists to be allowed to observe, if requested.
Private autopsies are commonplace following deaths in jails or prisons, particularly in highprofile cases, said Dr. Joe Cohen, a longtime pathologist who previously worked for the New York City medical examiner and is now in private practice in California.
The examinations can give families some answers before official results are finalized, which can take weeks or even months. Such autopsies also can offer a degree of independence when allegations of official wrongdoing or malfeasance arise.
“It takes away the appearance of something that’s gone corrupt,” said Scott M. Schmidt, president of the New York State Association of County Coroners and Medical Examiners. “To end any of that suspicion, if you have the means to do so, it squelches a lot of that if you get someone who comes in and has an opposing view.”
For example, in the 2014 death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old who was fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Missouri, pathologists conducted three autopsies: one by the St. Louis County Medical Examiner, a private one conducted by Baden and another ordered by the Justice Department.
Families are often interested in a private autopsy, Schmidt said, but many cannot afford an examination that can cost as much as $5,000.
At 85, Baden counts more than 20,000 autopsies during his career, and he is likely the nation’s best-known forensic pathologist — so much so that he hosted the HBO series “Autopsy.”
“He’s a delightful man and just a wealth of knowledge,” Schmidt said.
Baden has been part of many of America’s most prominent death investigations since the 1970s, when he was top pathologist for a congressional committee probing the Kennedy and King killings.