Dr. Bayer's autopsy report at first reading seems unremarkable. It's conclusion is that Vincent Foster died of a single gunshot wound entering the roof of the mouth and exiting the back of the skull.
But on closer examination, problems become apparent.
Dr. Beyer's co-worker at the Fairfax County, Virginia, medical examiner's office is Dr. Donald Haut. It was Dr. Haut, not Dr. Beyer, who actually examined Vincent Foster's body while it was still at Fort Marcy Park, assisted by John Rolla. On page two of Dr. Haut's signed report, the wound track is described as a "gunshot wound mouth to neck".
This corroborates the eyewitness testimony of EMS Technician Richard Arthur, who described the gunshot wound in some detail, placing it under the right ear. This is consistent with the news story reported by Ambrose Evens-Pritchard, who described a photograph of that wound.
Was there really an exit wound out the back of Foster's head?
Prior to the body's delivery to Beyer, nobody reported a gunshot wound out the back of the head. EMS Sergeant Gonzalas stated he did NOT see a gunshot wound out the back of the head. John Rolla did not report a gunshot wound out the back of the head. Another EMS Technician, Cory Ashford, testified is a tape recorded interview with reporter Chris Ruddy that he was certain there was NO exit wound at the back of the head while Vincent Foster was at Fort Marcy Park!
Outside of the obviously altered page one of Dr. Haut's report, there isn't a single official record of a gunshot wound exiting the back of Foster's head while he's still at Fort Marcy Park.
It is not until the body arrives at Dr. Beyer's morgue that the neck wound seen by Arthur and Haut seems to go away and the wound out the back of the head appears.
On the wound description page in the Beyer autopsy, the box for neck wounds has been left blank.
But the wound that Beyer DOES describe is rather odd. Supposedly, the wound is the result of a soft nosed unjacketed lead bullet being fired through two dense bones, first at the base of the skull and then at the rear. There should be metal fragments all over the wound track. For a comparison, take a look at the X-ray taken of John F. Kennedy's skull following his assassination. Metal fragments are seen throughout the interior of the skull, and this is from a full metal jacket round, the type that LIMITS fragmentation!
Yet in describing the wound track in Vincent Foster's head, Beyer notes on page 2 of his report that no metallic fragments were recovered during the examination! There should have been lead scrapings all over the bone perforations, had a soft-nosed lead bullet really made them!
More recently, a FBI telex was uncovered which reported that the autopsy conducted by the Fairfax County Medical Examiner had found a bullet entry but NO EXIT WOUND!
The missing X-rays
Beyer himself checked and signed the boxes on his report indicating that X-rays had been taken. Dr. Beyer told Park Police Detective James G. Morrissette that the X-rays showed no bullet fragments at all. Again, with the type of ammunition on the gun wound with Foster's body, this is impossible.
Of course, the X-rays were not to be found. Beyer later claimed that they hadn't been taken, and that his X-ray machine was broken, although the service records on that machine do not bear out this claim.
The missing crime scene photos
With the exception of a few Polaroid photos that are currently the subject of Allan Favish's FOIA lawsuit, no photographs of the crime scene exist.
The 35mm photographs taken by the Park Police were supposedly underexposed in the laboratory (although Starr investigator Miquel Rodriguez reportedly used an outside lab to successfully recover images from the film, just prior to his conflict with Mark Touhey and subsequent resignation from the OIC).
In addition to the 35mm photos, many more of the Polaroids of the crime scene simply vanished.
It turns out that Beyer was the last person known to be in possession of the now-vanished crime scene Polaroids. Rolla was unable to attend the autopsy of Vincent Foster because the autopsy was moved up 24 hours unexpectedly. As Rolla stated in his testimony, "Normally you like to have at least one of the scene investigators at the autopsy to answer questions for the medical examiner [Dr. James C. Beyer], but he had the photographs and copies of the reports."
Rolla testified that the photos were inside the case jacket when the jacket went to Beyer. After it had come back, the photos were gone. Note also that whereas it is normal to have investigators present for the autopsy, the last minute schedule change, moving the Foster up a day, meant that Beyer performed a significant part of the autopsy unobserved. By the time Park Police observers saw the body, Beyer had removed Foster's entire tongue and upper palette, obliterating the "mouth to neck" gunshot wound Dr. Haut had seen.
Clearly, something is very wrong with the autopsy and the preponderance of evidence points to Beyer as author of the deception. Certainly, he was well positioned to tamper with Dr. Haut's original report, altering the page 1 description.
Beyer's past history isn't the most reassuring. Indeed he seems to be the Virginia version of the infamous Dr. Fahmy Malek, the Arkansas M.E. who ignored clear evidence of homicide in the deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives and in one case ruled that a man who had been beheaded was dead of natural causes.
Beyer himself, in the case of Tommy Burkett, ignored a broken jaw in order to rule that Burkett had killed himself with a gun. Despite having shown the autopsy photos to Burkett's father, Beyer later claimed (as he did with the Foster X-rays) that they had never really existed. After a second autopsy, the case was reopened as a homicide.
Likewise, in 1989 there was an autopsy on establishing the death of a man named Tim Easley. Mr. Beyer, the coroner, ruled that Easley killed himself by stabbing himself in the chest. He failed to notice a defensive wound on the man's hand. The case was reopened, and, after an outside expert reviewed the case, Easley's girlfriend confessed to murdering him.
In short, Dr. Beyer's consistent performance (indeed his "specialty") appears to be the cover-up of murder by declaration of suicide!
In the case of Vincent Foster, the question must be asked if Dr. Beyer, given his past history, changed a non-fatal neck wound seen by witnesses at Fort Marcy Park into a fatal head shot needed for the suicide cover up.
Un. Fricking. Believeable.
My chin is still on the table next to the keyboard...
