Possible arsenic poisoning probed in death of coroner's official

Authorities said a Los Angeles County coroner's official, Michael Cormier, appears to have died from poisoning.

"At this point we haven't ruled out foul play," said Lt. Alan Hamilton of the Los Angeles Police Department. "It is one of the things being considered. We are waiting for the coroner's results."

Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide because the substance could have accidentally entered his system

Suspicion Surrounding Breitbart’s Death Confirmed - Los Angeles Coroner Poisoned

Excerpt:

To make the telltale evidence of a conspiratory pair of deaths even more compelling was the news that according to Elizabeth Espinosa, reporting for KTLA-TV of Los Angeles, “there are mysterious circumstances surrounding his death. We’re told that detectives are looking into the possibility that he was poisoned by arsenic.”

Cormier was hurried to Saint Joseph Medical Center at Burbank, CA after suffering from chest pains and vomiting. Michael Cormier was 61. His colleague also under the employ of the Los Angeles County Corner’s office, Ed Winter, advised that Cormier had been transported overnight, but had expired late in the evening. Ed Winter stated that his office would continue to work on determining the cause of death while awaiting toxicology reports that could take six to eight weeks.

Lieutenant Alan Hamilton of the LAPD did confirm that foul play would be considered as a possibility in determining how the poison played a role in the death of Michael Cormier. However, accidental contact was not ruled out as a possible cause of death either.

This unfortunate development in the continuing saga of Andrew Breitbart’s untimely death adds another disturbing element of uncertainty to a tragedy felt by the conservative political world as well as the families of the two victims. The lingering uncertainty here is the deadly timing of both deaths linked not only to each other, but the political volatility dividing our nation presently under the Obama administration.

http://voices.yahoo.com/suspicion-surrounding-breitbarts-death-confirmed-los-11295162.html

WOW!

I’m going to C&P what I posted in an earlier thread, in response to somebody posting a link to http://file.lacounty.gov/bc/q2_2010/cms1_145445.pdf

1st post about it:
Wow. That management audit document is VERY interesting. Still sorting it out, but from what’s on there - the flow charts and all - the special operations team includes the investigators, which are the people who go out when there is a field call. The people on the response team are the people who take down the initial information from police, witnesses, doctors, etc, photograph the scene, transport the body to the coroner’s office, take complete photos of the body, and fill out forms for the initial case file. Then the investigator gets the medical history from the decedent’s doctor and the case file and medical history are all given to the Deputy Coroner - Ed Winter, who was the guy who reported immediately that Andrew Breitbart had not seen a doctor in over a year. Ed Winter would not necessarily know who had done the photographs of the external body, just that the photos were in the case file.

Once the deputy coroner decides that a complete autopsy is to be done with lab tests, the case is assigned to a physician. If it is a high-profile case or a case where a crime is suspected that autopsy would be done by either the chief coroner, the chief physician, or the deputy coroner. A security hold would be put on the case and only a few people from that point on would be able to access the records. The deputy coroner would know who those people were.

At that point the body would be dissected and lab tests run. This is the point at which the forensic technicians photograph the inner parts of the body.

There are 3 supervisors and 6 technicians who are on the photography unit. Those technicians work closely with the doctors as they do the medical examinations. My understanding is that they would photograph the tissues/organs as the body was being dissected. The medical examiner would know who worked with him on that photography.

Michael Cormier was said to be a photographer for the special operations response team. And that seems to be correct because he is on video transporting a body from the scene of a death. That would mean that he did the initial photographing of the external body as it was being received from the hospital. Ed Winter would have no idea who did that photographing, which would explain him saying that Cormier was not involved with the Breitbart case AS FAR AS HE KNEW. If Cormier had been the forensic technician who aided in photographing the actual dissection Ed Winter would have known that.

The part that would be revealing for a heart attack dart assassination, though, would be the photographs of the external body. Which would be done by the photographer for the special operations response team. Which is the description given for Michael Cormier.
..............................

Follow-up post:
Something else that was said in the audit report )that I got that information from) was that the people who worked at the coroner’s office were concerned about the lax security and didn’t feel safe at work. That audit was from 2009, but unless they changed things within that time, there would have been opportunity for somebody to poison the guy right there at the coroner’s office.

Another thing that was said was that this office had had LOTS of photos ruined and it was not known what had ruined them. There was one whole year where the photos were destroyed, so cold cases from that year are tough out of luck.

It also said that the database system they have for the coroner allows people other than the examining physician to alter the file.

Very interesting stuff. But the main point is that what Cormier is reported as being (photographer for the special operations response team) is the very person who would take the photos of the bodies, transport them to the coroner’s facility, etc.

The same guy who handled information about Breitbart’s autopsy is the guy who will handle information about Cormier’s autopsy - Ed Winter, the deputy chief coroner.

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