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http://www.northjersey.com/cgi-bin/page.pl?id=5892005

N.J. coroner's latest mistake may be his worst
JOHN CURRAN

PLEASANTVILLE - When ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot to death in 1980, Dr. Elliot Gross performed the autopsy.

When 15-year-old Martha Moxley was found dead under a Greenwich, Conn., tree in 1975, Gross was the coroner who handled the body.

And when a New York subway graffiti artist named Michael Stewart died in police custody, Gross determined he died of cardiac arrest; in fact, Stewart died of injuries suffered while in custody.

Gross, 68, is no stranger to controversy. In a 40-year career that included more than 7,000 autopsies, his work in high-profile cases has frequently come under attack.

His latest error may be his biggest.

Gross determined that Ellen Andros, 31, found dead in her home last year, had been suffocated, and prosecutors charged her police officer husband with murder. James Andros III lost his job as an Atlantic City police officer, and his in-laws got custody of his two young daughters.

On Wednesday, Andros, 34, was cleared after another forensic pathologist determined that Ellen Andros actually died of coronary heart failure.

"He was flat-out wrong," said John Bjorklund, Andros' lawyer.

Gross has yet to talk publicly about the case. He did not return telephone calls Thursday.

"I don't know if I'm always involved in controversy or if it follows me," he said in an interview last year.

The son of a pediatrician, Gross grew up in Manhattan and attended medical school, where an elective course steered him toward pathology.

After working in the New York City Medical Examiner's Office, he served as chief medical examiner for the state of Connecticut from 1970 to 1979 and then in the same capacity for New York City until 1987, when he was fired.

After that, he worked for Lake County, Ind., before settling in southern New Jersey in 1995 as the coroner for Cape May and Cumberland counties.

But controversy has followed him:

In the 1983 Stewart case, he attributed the 25-year-old Brooklyn man's death to cardiac arrest, ruling out physical injury as a cause. An investigation later revealed transit police had used excessive force. Three were indicted but never convicted.

In New Jersey, Gross' work came into question in the case of Tracy Thomas, whose death in a 1997 traffic accident has never been explained. Gross said she died of blunt-force trauma when her car skidded off a snowy road and into a utility pole.

But a longtime rival, Dr. Michael Baden, was hired by the Ford Motor Co. after her husband blamed an exploding air bag for her death and sued the company. Baden said Mrs. Thomas was strangled, although no one has ever been charged in her death.

In the Andros case, Gross - called to the scene because Atlantic County Medical Examiner Hydow Park was unavailable - ruled on the spot that she had been suffocated, Andros' attorneys said. In a report Monday, a forensic pathologist hired by the state concluded Ellen Andros died naturally, as the result of bleeding in the coronary artery caused by a rare condition.

Confronted with the diagnosis, Gross immediately admitted his mistake and agreed to amend the death certificate, said to Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey Blitz.

"Suffocation is a very difficult diagnosis to make, and in the absence of confessions and observations, it's not a diagnosis that can be made grossly, microscopically, chemically or in any other way," said Dr. Cyril Wecht, a well-known forensic pathologist familiar with Gross and his work.

"I don't know how he arrived at it in the first place, and I'm surprised he backed off it so quickly," said Wecht, who has known Gross for years.

It wasn't clear Thursday whether Gross would face official sanction. Andros plans a civil suit against those he believes are responsible for wrongfully charging him.

But first, the 34-year-old patrolman plans to seek custody of his 7- and 5-year-old daughters. His late wife's parents intend to fight him, said their lawyer, Marissa Costello.

Asked if they still believe Andros did it, she said: "That's what they've been told, and to be untold a thing like that, after 1½ years, you can't just turn that off. It's a horrible situation all the way around."

Andros' supporters feel the same.

"They tore out this guy's heart," said neighbor John Goodman, 58. "He couldn't grieve for his wife, he was so worried about getting convicted, getting his children back, clearing his name. He was in a lot of emotional pain."