Free Republic

NEW YORK -- A Brooklyn teenager is facing two-years in prison for killing her brother's pet hamster. Monique Smith, 19, is charged with one felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly killing the 4-ounce hamster during a family dispute last June. Witnesses say the girl grabbed the hamster, choked it and threw it outside the house. Authorities say the teenager suspected her brother of killing her own hamster earlier in the day. "Sadly, very often, pets find themselves in the middle of these situations," said ASPCA Assist. Dir., Joe Pentangelo. "A family will have a disagreement and unfortunately...

The U.K.'s Discovery Channel has reportedly pulled its upcoming documentary Michael Jackson's Autopsy: What Really Killed Michael Jackson. The move comes after complaints from the singer's estate and a public outcry from fans. According to a new report from nymag.com, the network yanked the special out of respect for the trial of Jackson's physician Dr. Conrad Murray. "Given the commencement of legal proceedings beginning next week, and at the request of Jackson's estate, the broadcast of the medical documentary has been postponed indefinitely," network reps said in an official statement. Earlier this month, reps from Jackson's estate submitted a heated...

BISBEE — A rancher who was killed by a suspected illegal immigrant at his 35,000-acre ranch northeast of Douglas earlier this year died of multiple gunshot wounds, according to a recently released autopsy report. On March 27, Robert Krentz Jr., 58, was checking the ranch at about 10:30 a.m. He notified his family he encountered a southbound illegal immigrant and had called the U.S. Border Patrol, according to the report. He was supposed to meet a family member at a watering tank at 12:30 p.m. When he did not show up, the family started a search and then called Search...

Abortion centers are not nice places. How many more horror stories need to be uncovered before America wakes up to this harsh truth? Philadelphia and federal authorities who raided a doctor’s office after allegations a woman died during an abortion made a shocking discovery: more than two dozen frozen fetuses. For the second time in four days, Philadelphia Police, along with State Licensing officials and DEA agents, searched the West Philadelphia office of Dr. Kermit Gosnell on Monday. Sources tell Eyewitness News that the search came after a patient reportedly died during an abortion on November 20. Sources say the...

Renowned medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden is a familiar face around the cable news neighborhood. He's been called upon by countless news shows to give his opinion on whatever murder case they may be covering. Well today, Baden dropped a bombshell as he testified at a hearing into the 2004 death of Kathleen Savio, the third wife of Drew Peterson. Baden said a producer for "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" helped him with the autopsy on Savio by taking photos and moving the body. Savio's body had been exhumed for examination after Peterson was implicated in the disappearance...

Police: Student Is Suspect In Yale Killing Victim believed to be graduate student who was due to be married Sunday NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Police have identified a suspect in the killing of a person whose body was found stuffed behind a wall in a high-security laboratory building at Yale University, law enforcement sources told NBC News on Monday. The suspect, a student, has defensive wounds, and failed a polygraph test, police said. The body found Sunday in the Yale Medical School building is believed to be that of Annie Le, a 24-year-old native of Placerville, Calif. She was last...

THE Jackson family were reeling last night after being given the results of a private autopsy they had demanded. Relatives had ask ed for their own report on the singer's body after the LA Coroner's office ruled out foul play. But the second autopsy has confirmed the findings of the first, which were revealed in The Sun on Monday. The news was broken to Jacko's mother Katherine at her home by the coroner who conducted the private examination. Family lawyer Brian Oxman said the findings were consistent and that the star's body bore "a number of unique and significant marks...

His hips, thighs and shoulders were riddled with needle wounds — believed to be the result of injections of narcotic painkillers, given three times a day for years. And a mass of surgery scars were thought to be the legacy of at least 13 cosmetic operations. The examination showed the 5ft 10in star — once famed for his on-stage athleticism — had: PLUNGED to a “severely emaciated” 8st 1oz. It is understood anorexic Jackson had been eating just one meagre meal a day. Pathologists found his stomach empty aside from partially-dissolved pills he took before the painkiller injection which stopped...

LOS ANGELES - Famed New York pathologist Michael Baden is on his way to California to perform a private autopsy on the body of David Carradine. "Baden is one of the most experienced forensic pathologists in the world. If there's something suspicious, he'll find it," said his friend Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, chairman of the Department of Forensic Sciences at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Baden, the former Chief Medical Examiner of New York City, confirmed to radaronline.com that he will be examining the body of the "Kung Fu" star.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Los Angeles County coroner official says an autopsy has failed to determine the cause of death for adult film star Marilyn Chambers. Los Angeles County coroner's Assistant Chief Ed Winter said Tuesday that 56-year-old Chambers probably died of natural causes, but additional testing will be required. Chambers was found dead Sunday at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Canyon Country. Chambers starred in the explicit 1972 movie "Behind the Green Door," which helped bring hard-core adult films into the mainstream. Her appearance in the film cost the then-aspiring model and actress her job...

PONTIAC, Mich. — A medical examiner's office in Michigan has canceled public school tours after a high school group watched the autopsy of a 14-year-old girl from their district. The Detroit News reports Monday that Oakland County officials decided to stop the tours in Pontiac after they were contacted by the girl's parents, who were very upset about the March tour. Mike Zehnder, the county's director of public services, says it was "a poor decision" to let the tour go on.

In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems. This one is easy. The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 -- caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) -- although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4. In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff. This was not just a meltdown but a panic. For an agonizing...

Tiffany Woods should one day look at the autopsy pictures of her starved baby, a Caddo District Court judge said this afternoon as she found Woods and her boyfriend guilty of letting their baby starve to death. The child's mother and father, who were Hurricane Katrina evacuees, had money for beer and cigarettes but not money to properly feed their child, the judge added. Judge Jeanette Garrett, who decided the case in lieu of a jury, found Woods and Emmanuel Scott guilty of second-degree murder in the death of their 5-month-old baby. Woods, 28, and Scott, 21, face mandatory life...

After MRI reveals woman killed during Ashkelon robbery was strangled, High Court instructs Jerusalem hospital to release body for burial, despite demand made by State Prosecutor's Office that it undergo autopsy. Zaka chairman: This is a great victory to the MRI method The High Court of Justice has instructed a Jerusalem hospital to release the body of Ziona Samin, the murdered wife of a prominent rabbi, so it can be buried. In this ruling, the judges rejected a demand by the State Prosecutor's Office that the body undergo an autopsy, after an MRI revealed that she had been strangled. The...

Given the great strides that have been made in preventing and treating heart disease, what explains Tim Russert’s sudden death last week at 58 from a heart attack? The answer, at least in part, is that although doctors knew that Mr. Russert, the longtime moderator of “Meet the Press” on NBC, had coronary artery disease and were treating him for it, they did not realize how severe the disease was because he did not have chest pain or other telltale symptoms that would have justified the kind of invasive tests needed to make a definitive diagnosis. In that sense, his...

The letter below is from one of the Marines whose team I am on who have been involved with the Hamdania Incident, both in fundraising and exposure to the public of information that the media has refused to cover, and that includes all conservative media like FOX News, NEWSMAX, World Net Daily, Ollie North, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Howie Carr. Some of them can be forgiven due to the large amount of e-mails received daily, but others were given extensive telephone interviews, with details, and some of them outright refused to consider this as an issue because it would not...

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman who died in police custody during an airport layover was intoxicated on a potent mix of alcohol and antidepressants and accidentally strangled herself on her shackles, an autopsy released Friday concludes.

Tech gunman shot victims over 100 times By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer 12 minutes ago Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho fired enough shots to wound his 32 victims more than 100 times before killing himself with a bullet to his head, a medical examiner said Sunday. Dr. William Massello, the assistant medical examiner based in Roanoke, said pathologists have sent blood samples for toxicology testing to determine if Cho was on drugs at the time of his rampage. It could take as long as two weeks to get the results of those tests, he said. Cho was not especially...

UT Southwestern Medical Center Date: January 16, 2007 Napoleon's Mysterious Death Unmasked Science Daily — A new investigation into Napoleon Bonaparte's cause of death might finally put to rest nearly 200 years of lingering mysteries about the illness that killed the French emperor during his island exile, a UT Southwestern Medical Center scientist reports. Dr. Robert Genta, professor of pathology and internal medicine, helped investigate the cause of Napoleon Bonaparte's death nearly 200 years ago by applying modern pathological and tumor-staging methods to historical accounts. (Image courtesy of UT Southwestern Medical Center) American, Swiss and Canadian researchers applied modern pathological...

This is a reference thread with links to previous FR threads discussing the arrest of a suspect, John Mark Karr, in the decade-old cold case concerning the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, plus case resources for continued commentary on investigation of the crime.

A Giant statue by Damien Hirst showing the insides of a pregnant woman and entitled The Virgin Mother was unveiled at the Royal Academy of Arts in London yesterday. The Virgin Mother took 18 months to complete The 35ft bronze sculpture, which dominates the courtyard in front of the gallery, reveals the foetus and the woman's skull, muscles and tissue. The work, weighing 3.5 tons, took a year and a half to make and will form part of the Summer Exhibition, From Life, which starts on June 12. "It will be very interesting to see people's reactions," said Edith Davaney,...

4pm Zarqawi died 52 minutes after air strike, US says · Autopsy finds 'no evidence' of beating or gunshots· Al-Qaida in Iraq names new leader Staff and agenciesMonday June 12, 2006 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi took nearly an hour to die after a US air strike destroyed his safe house, the results of a US autopsy showed today. The spokesman said Zarqawi died 52 minutes after the first of two 500lb bombs hit the building and 24 minutes after US forces arrived at the scene.The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq had been meeting a spiritual leader at the house near...

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi lived for 52 minutes after a U.S. warplane bombed his hideout northeast of Baghdad, and he died of extensive internal injuries consistent with those caused by a bomb blast, the U.S. military said Monday. Col. Steve Jones, command surgeon for Multinational Forces, said an autopsy concluded that al-Zarqawi died from serious injuries to his lungs. An FBI test positively identified al-Zarqawi's remains. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, said U.S. forces arrived about 28 minutes after a fighter jet bombed al-Zarqawi's hideout outside Baqouba on Wednesday. Medics secured al-Zarqawi's airway but...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. military autopsy was finished on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi on Sunday, but the findings were not immediately released by American officials. "The autopsy is completed. However, we are not releasing results yet," Maj. William Willhoite told The Associated Press. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said officials were awaiting the results of a DNA test. The examination by two U.S. military forensic specialists flown in specially for the autopsy was part of an investigation to reconstruct the last minutes of the terror chieftain's life before an American warplane bombed his hideout late Wednesday....

NEW YORK -- An Indonesian man found dead in the blood-spattered basement of his country's consulate on the Upper East Side took his own life by repeatedly stabbing himself with various knives in a gruesome fashion, authorities said Monday. The man, identified by officials in Indonesia as Bambang Welianto, 36, of Jakarta, was found Sunday with a kitchen knife in his chest and his left wrist almost severed. Several more knives, including a meat cleaver, were found around him inside the four-story Beaux-Arts mansion on East 68th Street, off Fifth Avenue. A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, Ellen Borakove,...

Several bloggers have drawn attention to a strange lead in a Washington Post story about the Terri Schiavo autopsy results. The June 16 Post story by David Brown said that "Terri Schiavo died of the effects of a profound and prolonged lack of oxygen to her brain on a day in 1990, but what caused that event isn't known and may never be, the physician who performed her autopsy said…"

The right-to-life versus dying-with-dignity battle over Terri Schindler Schiavo exploded back into life on Monday, bursting back to life from the unlikely scene of a cemetery. "At the burial site of Terri Schiavo’s cremated remains, Michael Schiavo used a bronze grave marker to list Feb. 25, 1990 as the date his wife died," laments Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Washington-based Christian Democracy Coalition (CDC). "Feb. 25, 1990 is the date Terri Schindler Schiavo experienced a still unknown event that left her severely mentally disabled. Terri Schiavo actually died March 31, 2005, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube...

Dr. William Hammesfahr, nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work in Medicine, has been recognized by agents for Medicare, the federal government, and others for new approaches to helping the brain injured. Dr. Hammesfahr has been identified in helping patients with chronic brain injuries from many causes actually leave long term disability, and return to work. Dr. Hammesfahr, was identified by Judge Susan Kirkland, for the State of Florida Department of Health, in her judicial ruling in which, for the State of Florida, Department of Health, found that he was "the first physician to restore deficits caused by stroke."...

Just when it seemed that every liberal commentator on the Terri Schiavo case was starting to sound like Barney Frank, the great Joan Didion published a long and remarkable article on the case in the quite far left New York Review of Books of June 9. Frank, of course, took the occasion of last week's Schiavo autopsy results as yet another opportunity to denounce Republicans as "this fanatical party willing to impose its own views on people." For those of you still somehow unaware, "imposing their views" is a semiofficial Democratic meme or code phrase meaning "religious people who vote...

Correct me if I'm wrong .. but when the Terri Schiavo matter was consuming front pages and broadcast news, wasn't the issue whether or not she was reacting to her parents and watching that balloon floating around her room? She should not be allowed to die, people said, because with rehab she would improve and then her family could take her to malls and birthday parties and such. Well, the autopsy results are in. [full autopsy pdf] There was no way that Terri Schiavo could benefit in any way from rehabilitation therapy. What's more, she had no cognitive abilities. In...

Autopsy highlights: (my comments in parentheses) T11 endplate fracture (?correllates with bone scan) Renal scar (right) Heart normal (no evidence of "heart attack") "Manner of death: Undetermined" Dr. Stephen Nelson, Neuropathologist, in a report contained within the autopsy report: "The persistent vegetative state and minimally conscious state are clinical diagnoses, not pathologic ones. The neurophysiologic findings of the persistent vegetative state have been well described in the medical literature ... yet there are no similarly published neurophysiologic descriptions specific to the minimally conscious state". "In diffuse axonal injury this abnormality is usually due to a shearing injury after acute trauma"....

...The autopsy in the Terri Schiavo case provides a rare moment of political accountability. We should not "move on," as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist suggested. No, we cannot move on until those politicians who felt entitled to make up facts and toss around unwarranted conclusions about Schiavo's condition take responsibility for what they said -- and apologize... So the big-government conservatives had to invent a story. They had to insist that they knew, just knew , more about Terri Schiavo's condition than the doctors on the scene. They had to question Michael Schiavo's motives and imply that he wanted...

In a press conference held at the National Right to Life convention, Thursday afternoon, the family of Terri Schiavo responded to an autopsy report released by a local medical examiner following the thirteen day starvation and dehydration death of Terri Schiavo. Terri's sister Suzanne Vitadamo read a statement on behalf of herself, Terri's parents Bob and Mary Schindler and Terri's brother Bobby. Vitadamo said the Schindler family was "not challenging the findings" of the report, but she indicated they hoped to provide some perspective missing in the reporting on it. She indicated the Schindler family knew of Terri's severe physical...

It’s okay to dehydrate and starve the disabled. At least that’s what some letter writers to canadafreepress.com are saying as they gloat about the release of Terri Schiavo’s autopsy. "Poor Terri had half a brain left, no chance to ever rehabilitate, no feelings, no thoughts, no way to tell everyone to leave her alone so she could see G-d (sic). It took 15 years but she did it no thanks to people like you," wrote Gloria whose email came from a generic hotmail account (picchetti707@hotmail.com)

June 16, 2005 Atrophy of Compassion Fr. Frank comments on Terri Schiavo autopsy The autopsy of Terri Schiavo has been released to the public, bringing attention once again to this sad and tragic case, and reigniting so many of the debates surrounding her life and death. Does the autopsy shed any light on this tragedy? Does it change anything? The autopsy, of course, is a medical document about Terri's physical condition. It is filled with complicated medical terms and statistics. In and of itself, it tells us simply the details found upon examining Terri's body. An autopsy is not a...

Killing Terri All Over Again By: Deacon Keith Fournier © Third Millennium, LLC I was sickened by all the news reports concerning the autopsy of dear Terri Schiavo. I was repulsed by most of the “commentators” who attempted, in a smug and condescending manner, to try to use these results to not only justify but somehow commend her brutal murder. Terri was killed by dehydration with the full protection of the State, operating through a Judge who was committed to her death. This autopsy changes nothing. Let’s take a moment and strip away all the nonsense. Terri’s autopsy appears to...

Cause of Death: Complications of Anoxic Encephalopathy. Manner of Death: Undetermined The persistent vegetative state and minimally conscious state, are clinical diagnoses, not pathologic ones. (these are all statements from the report)

Terri Schiavo Autopsy Reveals Nothing To Justify Her Killing Pinellas Park, FL - Jun 15, 2005 The autopsy report for Terri Schiavo was released today and revealed no new details that could have morally justified her court-ordered killing by dehydration. Although the autopsy report indicated no signs of strangulation or other abuse, as Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler had suspected, it also found no signs of an eating disorder, as her husband, Michael, had insisted. "Whatever the extent of Terri's disability, she did not deserve the death penalty," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. Operation Rescue was one of...

Terri Schiavo did not suffer any trauma before her 1990 collapse and her brain was about half of normal size when she died, according to results released Wednesday of an autopsy conducted on the severely brain-damaged woman. Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin concluded that there was no evidence of strangulation or other trauma leading to her collapse. He also said she did not appear to have suffered a heart attack and there was no evidence that she was given harmful drugs or other substances prior to her death. He said she would not have been able to eat or drink...

(1st Add: Includes comments from George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney.) (CNSNews.com) - Terri Schiavo's body did not show any signs of trauma or other criminal activity that would explain her brain injury, nor was there evidence to support previous diagnoses of a heart attack or an eating disorder, the Florida medical examiner who conducted her autopsy said Wednesday. A representative of Terri's family complimented the report, but said it still leaves many questions unanswered. "She died of dehydration," Dr. Jon Thogmartin, the Florida medical examiner for Pinellas and Pasco counties said, noting that the official cause of death would be...

Terri Schiavo (search) died from dehydration and was not abused before her 1990 collapse, an autopsy report revealed Wednesday

This is news/activism. Terri Schindler Schiavo is still in the headlines. The death lobby shouldn't kid themselves. We are not going to forget... LIVE THREAD of Terri Schiavo Autopsy Press Conference. It begins at 11:00 pm est from Clearwater, Florida at the Medical Examiner's Office right down the road from where Terri was starved & dehydrated to death. The ME will have to address that hmmmmmmmm? John Throgmartin, ME, here he goes. Dr. Steven Nelson joins him. HERE WE GO.

LARGO - The long-awaited results from Terri Schiavo's autopsy will be released Wednesday morning, Pinellas County officials announced today. The brain-damaged woman died at her Pinellas Park hospice on March 31, two weeks after the removal of her feeding tube. During the course of the legal battle, allegations surfaced that Michael Schiavo abused Terri. Those complaints had previously been dismissed in court, but the autopsy is expected to settle that question for good. The autopsy is also expected to reveal what condition Terri was actually in when she died. Her parents insisted that she was minimally conscious, but most medical...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Terri Schiavo's relatives say they are hoping that her autopsy results can shed some light on what led to her collapse and severe brain damage 15 years ago. Those results are scheduled to be made public tomorrow.(today) Terri Schiavo, shown in this undated Schindler family photo taken shortly after she had a heart attack in 1990. The 41-year-old Pinellas County woman died March 31st, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube keeping her alive was removed by a court order sought by her husband Michael Schiavo. Most doctors said she was in a persistent vegetative state, but...

TAMPA, Fla. - The medical examiner's office plans to release its autopsy report Wednesday on Terri Schiavo — findings her family hopes will shed light on the cause of the collapse that left her severely brain-damaged 15 years ago. Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her death ended a bitter legal battle between Michael Schiavo, who said his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who disputed doctors'...

The Pinellas County medical examiner's office in Florida plans to release its autopsy report tomorrow on Terri Schiavo – findings her family hopes will shed light on the cause of the collapse that left her severely brain-damaged 15 years ago. Schiavo, 41, died March 31, nearly two weeks after the feeding tube that had kept her alive was removed under a court order obtained by her husband, Michael Schiavo. Her death ended a bitter legal battle between Michael Schiavo, who said his wife did not want to be kept alive artificially, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Both Michael...

We all watched Terri Schiavo die. Now former LAPD homicide detective and New York Times bestselling author Mark Furhman investigates to find out what really happened. Later this month, Furhman's newest book, Silent Witness: The Untold Story of Terri Schiavo's Death, will be released. It will prove the controversy over Terry Schiavo's death is far from over. And it's not over yet. Despite her death, the controversy lingers. In Silent Witness, Mark Fuhrman applies his highly respected investigative skills to examine the medical evidence, legal case files, and police records. [NewsMax will have among the first copies.] With the complete...

Clearwater, FL (LifeNews.com) -- The autopsy results on Terri Schiavo are two to three weeks away, according to the local medical examiner charged with the task of determining her cause of death. The disabled woman died after a painful 13-day starvation and dehydration death that generated worldwide controversy. Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin has been working on Terri's autopsy for the last month and he says he needs two to three more weeks to complete it. Until then, he won't talk about the work in progress. He will say, however, that he has received hundreds of letters and emails related...

April 24, 2005 Buried Answers By DAVID DOBBS hen Dr. Alan Schiller's 87-year-old mother died in January, ''it took some convincing,'' Schiller says, to get his siblings to agree to an autopsy. ''They said: 'She had Alzheimer's. Let her rest.' But I told them: 'No, something seems funny to me. An autopsy is the only way to be sure.''' Schiller prevailed. A tanned, quick-minded, gregarious man in his 60's, he is naturally persuasive, and as chairman of pathology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, he carries a certain authority regarding autopsies. The word ''autopsy,'' he reminded...

Published Monday, April 11, 2005 Autopsies Don't Explain Deaths Toxicology tests will be done on the sisters' bodies to test for the presence of drugs. By Dana Willhoit The Ledger LAKELAND -- Autopsies didn't pinpoint what killed twin sisters who were found in their motel room Friday, officials said Sunday. Toxicology tests will be conducted to determine whether drugs were in the sisters' systems, but the results of those tests may not be known for several weeks, said Dr. Stephen Nelson, Polk County's medical examiner. An examination of the bodies Sunday didn't find any trauma injuries that would explain the...