His coroner didn't die. A tech in the LA coroner's office (which has hundreds of employees) died. There's no indication that the guy who died was in any way involved in Breitbart's autopsy.
There's also no indication that the witness discused in the article "vanished," as opposed to the "private investigator" having outdated or incorrect contact information for him.
The guy who died of suspected arson poisoning was a photographer for the special operations response team, so that’s as close as we can come (without seeing an actual schedule of who took the call that night) to knowing that he was the guy who actually photographed Breitbart’s body before the coroner cut him open.
IOW, if there was a red mark on Breitbart’s body where a potassium choloride dart entered his body, it was photographed by somebody holding the same position as the guy who was poisoned.
We don’t know which photographer took the call that night. There are 8 techs on the photography team, but that includes the people who photograph the tissues and organs from the autopsy itself; going out on the calls to pick up the body, bring it back to the morgue, and photograph it is a different job which is one job we know that Cormier did. Breitbart’s body would have been picked up from the Reagan Hospital at UCLA, which isn’t that far from North Hollywood, where Michael Cormier lived. So it would make sense for him to take the call. Looks like Brentwood, where Breitbart went down, is just across the San Diego Freeway from UCLA.
Here’s a post about this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2878213/reply?c=25 There are follow-up posts as well.
It’s based on what is revealed in a 2009 audit of the LA County Coroner’s Office, which is at http://file.lacounty.gov/bc/q2_2010/cms1_145445.pdf
On p 65 of that PDF there is an organizational chart which shows where the Special Operations response team is and where the photography and support division is. Somewhere it says that the techs in the photography division work most closely with the actual medical examiners during the autopsies.
The special operations photographers would work with the investigators who go out on the field calls. They are the people who collect the information that helps the Deputy Chief Coroner decide whether an autopsy is needed - which includes information about the death scene, external condition of the body, and the decedent’s medical history. (Breitbart’s death REQUIRED an autopsy because he had not seen a doctor within a month of his death - and the Deputy Chief Coroner, Ed Winter, actually said that he hadn’t seen a doctor for over a year - which would have been gleaned from his actual medical records, according to the flow chart for field calls, found on p. 86). The visible condition of the body is what would be important for the photographer to document at the point the coroner’s office took custody of the body.
Those photos would be confidential (wouldn’t be available to the public in the autopsy results). Breitbart’s autopsy would have a security hold on it and very few people would have access to the records, but the medical evidence inventory (which would presumably list all the photos) is able to be altered by someone other than the medical examiner even when there is a security hold. I need to look further, but it seems that the photos could be removed or edited. This office is notorious for compromising their photos; a whole year’s worth of photos were lost/damaged and nobody knows why. The person who would know if the photos had been removed from the file and the medical evidence inventory scrubbed to hide that fact... is the person who took the photos.
Something else in that report is a statistic regarding the number of physical attacks made on staff there. One of the problems the audit was supposed to address was the staffers’ feeling that they were not secure there. Security has been a problem. The police went to Cormier’s house to look for arsenic, but unless something drastic happened between 2009 and when Cormier died, a hit-man would have little problem making a hit right there at the coroner’s office.
This is the description for the symptoms of arsenic poisoning, found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/arsenic_poisoning.shtml :
“A person exposed to large amounts of arsenic - either through eating or drinking it - will usually die, and symptoms will appear within 30 minutes of exposure. Although the onset of symptoms may be delayed as the concentration is likely to be lower, there is a similar outlook for people who breathe large amounts of it.
Acute arsenic poisoning causes a metallic taste in the mouth, excessive saliva production and problems swallowing. The next stage is to suffer vomiting and diarrhoea coupled with garlic-like breath, stomach cramps and excessive sweating.
As the poison’s effects progress, the patient will suffer seizures and go into shock, dying within a few hours. If death does not occur at this stage, it will happen a few days when the kidney fails. “
The same article says that arsenic is odorless and tasteless, so it would not be difficult to use as a poison. Cormier was pronounced dead at about 10:30pm after having complained of nausea and pain. (I’m trying to find the exact quote but my computer is suddenly acting up again. sigh)
I’ve got a ton of stuff to do, getting ready for my daughter’s graduation, but when I get time I may write up something that shows the relevant information from that document.