We’re pretty sure we wouldn’t want to be in former San Luis Obispo county medical examiner Dr. Gary Walter’s shoes right now. The San Luis Obispo Tribune reports he’s once again found himself on the hot seat, this time for his testimony in the preliminary hearing for Veronica Brouwer, accused to killing her two-year-old child. When asked if the fatal blunt-force trauma that he called the cause of death was intentional or not, he pretty much shrugged, and told the judge, “I donno.” Faced with such assuredness, the judge released Brouwer due to lack of evidence, and the county is weighing whether to refile charges. This isn’t the first time Walter’s been involved in controversy this year. The accuracy of his reports have been questioned. There’s the wrongful death suit in Kings County. Or his disputed ruling in the death a county jail inmate. Can’t forget the time he contradicted the findings of his own autopsy while on the witness stand. Then there’s the time he declared a young woman’s death to be caused by an overdose of LSD (a finding most experts called laughable, although they still recommend you avoid the brown acid). And this might be the worst: he was arrested for driving drunk. On his way to an autopsy. We’re pretty sure one doctor won’t be getting his invite to CoCoCo, the annual County Coroner’s Cotillion.
Next up in our hall of shame is the Fort Napier State Mortuary in Durban, South Africa. The mortuary workers are on strike, unhappy with their working conditions, and families are wondering what the government will do to help them gain possession of their loved one’s remains. We can certainly sympathize with the workers’ need for safe conditions, we also feel for the dead who, according to the IOL News service, are queued up, waiting for post-mortems.
Maybe they could all take a lesson from Rajender Kumar, an attendant at the Subzi Mandi mortuary in New Delhi, India. He’s following in his father’s footsteps, and remains on the job even though exposure to the chemicals used has caused him to lose weight and some of his eyesight. “People who have lost their loved ones undergo emotional turmoil,” he tells the Pioneer. “The least I can do is do my job earnestly.”
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