A little off topic here but I believe there were some UM segments where he contributed. Anyway here's an interesting recent article I found about him:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/20/national/a115010S26.DTL

A little off topic here but I believe there were some UM segments where he contributed. Anyway here's an interesting recent article I found about him:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/01/20/national/a115010S26.DTL

It doesn't seem too off-topic to me, especially since Cyril Wecht was interviewed in numerous UM segments.

They include (but are not limited to) the following:

1) The 1987 death of a Pennsylvania college student
2) The death of Kurt Cobain (of Nirvana fame)
3) The December 1992 death of a Pennsylvania woman, whose fall from her balconey at home was supposedly an accident (after the segment aired, her husband was arrested and tried for her death, only to be acquitted).

Crystal, I do not know if you knew this before you posted but Dr. Cyril Wecht is the medical examiner for Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. Basically the greater Pittsburgh area, where I have lived my entire life.

I was unable to read the link for some unknown reason (just got internet at home), but he has come under undue scrutiny lately for purely political reasons. The man is a class act and a brilliant medical examiner. Some political higher ups have it out for him for political reasons. The ticky tack stuff he has been charged with is ridiculous.

Anyways, I like Dr. Wecht very much! :D :D

Hey mercy! Yes he always came across likeable on the UM segments I thought (and I've seen him a lot on Fox News) thats pretty much what the article was saying about his indictment. Anyway here is the article since you can't get it to load up. :)

Prominent Coroner Indicted in Pittsburgh
By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Dr. Cyril Wecht, a nationally renowned medical examiner who consulted in the deaths of Elvis Presley and JonBenet Ramsey, was indicted Friday on federal charges of using county employees to campaign for him and handle his private lab work.


The indictment also accuses Wecht of trading unclaimed bodies stored by the county coroners office, which he headed, to a Pittsburgh university in exchange for use of a laboratory there for his private practice.


Wecht, 74, planned to turn himself in later. He immediately resigned from his $105,000-a-year post as Allegheny County's medical examiner after learning of the indictment.


The 84-count indictment accuses him of using county employees to run private errands and do work for his private practice between 1996 and December 2005.


U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan declined to estimate how much Wecht — who earned $4.65 million from his private practice from 1997 to 2004 — might have gained from the alleged abuse.


"Am I innocent? Yes, I'm innocent," Wecht told reporters Friday evening. Asked whether he thought the indictment would affect his reputation, he said: "Reputation is in the eyes of the beholder, as is beauty. So we'll see how it plays out with people."


His defense team, including former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, issued a statement Friday denying the charges and blaming local politics.


The attorneys said the investigation began as a result of "fanciful allegations" by the county district attorney, with whom Wecht has feuded. They also questioned the U.S. attorney's jurisdiction over his conduct in county government. The indictment said federal authorities have jurisdiction because the county uses some federal funds.


The federal investigation was well-known, and Wecht had earlier agreed to resign if indicted. His attorneys have said they met with federal prosecutors in recent weeks to try to negotiate a settlement.


The indictment charges Wecht with mail fraud, wire fraud, theft of honest services and theft from the county coroner's office.


The university mentioned, Carlow University, was not accused of a crime. Buchanan said it was not clear how much university officials knew about the bodies, which had no known next-of-kin and were supposed to be stored by Wecht's office.


Carlow officials issued a statement saying they were not aware of Wecht's alleged violations and had provided space to Wecht as part of a course he taught on autopsy procedures.


"At no time did Carlow trade laboratory space for cadavers," the statement said. "Carlow believed that Dr. Wecht was acting lawfully and that the autopsies performed were part of his private practice and had no relationship to his duties as county coroner."


FBI agents seized computers and private files from Wecht's office last spring, and three of his employees resigned shortly afterward. Two people who worked for him were indicted, one accused of performing private lab work on county time, the other of submitting false mileage reimbursement invoices for work done in neighboring counties.


In 1981, Wecht had been cleared of criminal charges alleging he used his staff to do private work on county time while coroner. He also faced a related civil court order to repay $252,000 in that case, and eventually paid back $200,000 after a decade of litigation.


Wecht gained fame in the 1960s when he criticized the Warren Commission's findings in the President Kennedy assassination, and he has consulted on cases including the death of Laci Peterson.


In the months preceding the O.J. Simpson homicide trial in 1994, he became a frequent talk-show guest, conjecturing about the significance of blood samples and other evidence. His testimony at the trial of Claus von Bulow may have helped acquit the Rhode Island socialite of charges he tried to kill his wife.


Recently, he helped Louisiana officials conduct autopsies of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.


Wecht was the elected county coroner from 1970 to 1980 and took office again in 1996. Earlier this month, he was appointed to a five-year term as the county's first medical examiner after the coroner's office was abolished under a government reform measure.


He is also an attorney and teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University.


___

That's insane. He seems like such a brilliant medical mind. Speaking of which, I was asking on one of the threads about one of the cases that Dr. Wecht was involved in... the death of the Pennsylvania college student. This is the fraternity guy that disappeared, and then his body was found at the bottom of an outside stairwell, which was in plain view of some of the classrooms in the building nearby... and I want to say that the original coroner said that his body was in the stairwell for something like three days, but NO ONE reported seeing him there. So strange. I always wondered if there was an update to this case...

Crystal, I do not know if you knew this before you posted but Dr. Cyril Wecht is the medical examiner for Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. Basically the greater Pittsburgh area, where I have lived my entire life.

I was unable to read the link for some unknown reason (just got internet at home), but he has come under undue scrutiny lately for purely political reasons. The man is a class act and a brilliant medical examiner. Some political higher ups have it out for him for political reasons. The ticky tack stuff he has been charged with is ridiculous.

Anyways, I like Dr. Wecht very much! :D :D

mercy1825, I've heard the same things you did, that the charges were trumped up due to political ramifications. In fact, I read on the internet many months ago that charges were possible but they would basically be nonsense.

I like Cyril Wecht also, but it's frustrating because I seem to vehemently disagree with him on some high profile cases but strongly agree with him on others. In contrast, I can't remember disagreeing with Michael Baden.

A few examples: I thought Dr. Wecht was way off in his cynicism regarding the single bullet theory in the JFK case, and also in his testimony in favor of the defense and an accidental drug overdose in the Ted Binion death, which was also a UM segment although Dr. Wecht's role might not have been mentioned.

But, of course, I completely agree with Dr. Wecht regarding Jeffrey MacDonald's innocence. In fact, you will notice many of his arguments are very similar to the ones I've made here. These are all quotes from Dr. Wecht, exerpts from an appearance on the Larry King Show on December 14, 2005:http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0512/14/lkl.01.html

DR. CYRIL WECHT, FORENSIC EXPERT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY CORONER: "Well, there was no evidence of any kind of sexual activity. All the injures that the two little girls sustained were clearly from the knife and the ice pick and from some kind of a club.

"Let me point out a couple of historical facts that haven't been mentioned this evening. Just six months before the Mansons had struck with Sharon Tate and the La Bianca and killed a pig. The pig was written in book, and in this case pig written in blood was there.

"And Helena Stokely was heard to say, acid's groovy, kill the pigs. Helena Stokely was seen just a couple of blocks away by the military policeman, Kenneth Mica, who is driving to the scene having been called. And there she was in the rain with that wide brimmed hat and that long stringy blond hair.

"Did Jeffrey MacDonald make up the whole thing about Helena Stokely and three men, two whites and a black guy? That all just came to him and he that whole scenario all planned? These were known hippies. These were known drug abusers. She was on mescaline, which is a hallucinogenic drug. These are the exact kinds of people who would commit these kinds of crimes.

"Just look at the Manson Sharon Tate situation. This was very much a copycat murder just occurring six months after those brutal killings in Hollywood."

DR. CYRIL WECHT, FORENSIC EXPERT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY CORONER: "I like to deal with some facts. You know, the first thing that homicide detectives look for are motives -- what's the motive here? And let's look at these brutal killings. Kristen, the 2-year-old was stabbed 17 times and speared 15 times with an ice pick. Kimberly, the 5-year- old, was stabbed multiple times and struck on the head with some kind of a club, an instrument, by the way, which nobody to my understanding has ever found. And Colette was speared 17 -- 21 times with an ice pick and brutally beaten on the head, producing a fractured skull.

"Jeffrey MacDonald had multiple stab wounds, a couple in the abdomen, the forearm, one into the chest that did produce a pneumothorax. He was in the hospital for seven days. To say that because he was a doctor, he can calculate exactly the depth of the penetrating wound and be sure that he will survive that, that is absurd. No doctor, including a thoracic surgeon, is going to undertake that kind of a situation. This is a man that did not have that kind of a brutal past.

"A graduate of Princeton, a graduate of Northwestern Medical School, at or near the top of his class, a man who was respected, considered to be someone most likely to succeed down the road. You know what the motive was Larry, that they said, that the child, Kristen, had wet the bed, Colette having taken her to the bed, and that Jeffrey was so angry that his side of the bed had been wet by his 2-year-old daughter, that he proceeded to murder his wife and murder the two children. Now, that's the motive."

Wecht's trial is underway. You can check out the coverage here:

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/Wecht/index.html

It's very interesting.

Yeah, the trial started back on January 28th I believe it was. Wecht I believe is on trial for 41 federal charges. Originally back in January of 06 he was indicted on 84 charges, however that indictment was later dropped due to conflict of interest issues with the prosecuting attorney and judge both of whom were well known to have a personal dislike of Dr. Wecht.

I actually like Dr. Wecht and I believe that a lot of this federal charge stuff is just a bunch of crap. It is basically a personal vendetta by a district attorney who while he is not prosecuting this case, I have always felt that he is directly involved in this persecution of Dr. Wecht. Him and Dr. Wecht have been well known enemies for years.

Crystal, I do not know if you knew this before you posted but Dr. Cyril Wecht is the medical examiner for Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. Basically the greater Pittsburgh area, where I have lived my entire life.

I was unable to read the link for some unknown reason (just got internet at home), but he has come under undue scrutiny lately for purely political reasons. The man is a class act and a brilliant medical examiner. Some political higher ups have it out for him for political reasons. The ticky tack stuff he has been charged with is ridiculous.

Anyways, I like Dr. Wecht very much! :D :D


you are 100% right about Wecht. He is a frequent guest on Quinn and Rose (a political talk show base dout of Pittsburgh. Think of Rush Limbaugh witha thorn in his paw). Wecht is a class act and he's getting his name dragged through the mud by opponents for political reasons only.

Crystal, I do not know if you knew this before you posted but Dr. Cyril Wecht is the medical examiner for Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. Basically the greater Pittsburgh area, where I have lived my entire life.

I was unable to read the link for some unknown reason (just got internet at home), but he has come under undue scrutiny lately for purely political reasons. The man is a class act and a brilliant medical examiner. Some political higher ups have it out for him for political reasons. The ticky tack stuff he has been charged with is ridiculous.

Anyways, I like Dr. Wecht very much! :D :D


you are 100% right about Wecht. He is a frequent guest on Quinn and Rose (a political talk show based out of Pittsburgh. Think of Rush Limbaugh witha thorn in his paw). Wecht is a class act and he's getting his name dragged through the mud by opponents for political reasons only.

LOL! Jerry McDevitt is Wecht's attorney. Wecht will get off easily ;) - McDevitt's claim to fame as far as I know it is getting the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) off the hook in their famed steroid trial in the early 90s.

With all the hoopla surrounding MLB and steroids, I would not be surprised if the issue with steroids and wrestlers turn up again and McDevitt will be right there to claim "foul" :rolleyes:

here's an interesting factoid: Cyril Wecht ran for the U.S. senate in 1982 and was his party's nominee for that cycle. His opponent was John Heinz, first husband of Teresa Heinz Kerry, now married to John Kerry.