Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2022
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Autopsy
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My girlfriend, I’m forced to call her M here because the Virginia Department of Corrections has forbidden me to use her name (First Amendment anyone?), died on June 3, 2003, and was supposedly autopsied on June 4 at 9:00 in the morning. Let me explain why I say ‘supposedly autopsied.’
At my request, Dr. William T. Gormley, Chief Medical Examiner for Virginia, did an independent review of the autopsy. His one word description, “horrendous.” There were no photos or video made of the procedure and Dr. Gormley called the local medical examiner’s notes “incomplete.” If interested, you may view the report of my private investigator on my website, www.bobshelltruth.com .
Beyond Dr..Gormley’s comments there are obvious problems with the autopsy report.
Photography models are obsessive about their weight, because photography, in rendering a three dimensional body in flat two dimensional form, adds ten or more pounds in appearance. They need to keep themselves lean. I had a medical balance beam scale, the most accurate type, for them to check their weight on. M checked her weight with that scale at least twice a week. She weighed 120 pounds, and her weight never fluctuated more than a pound or two in either direction. She’d just checked her weight two days before she died. M was five foot seven barefoot.
When we got the first package of discovery from the prosecution, a copy of the autopsy report was included. The minute I started reading it alarm bells went off in my head. The body autopsied weighed 140 pounds, and was five foot eight! Did she gain twenty pounds and an inch in two days? It is described as having large breasts! M was sensitive that her “girls,” as she called them, were small. She very rarely wore a bra.
Since there are no photos or video of the procedure, how do we know M was autopsied at all? Answer: We don’t!
Now, I was also dissatisfied with the toxicology report, which shows only one sample, ‘heart blood’, was analyzed for drugs.
I contracted with a nationally recognized lab to do independent tests, and the judge ordered the samples sent there. When the lab received a box of empty specimen bottles, we were belatedly told that the medical examiner, the same one who purportedly performed the autopsy and harvested multiple tissue and blood samples, had destroyed all of the samples!
Because M was cremated (at the urging of the police, her relatives told me), there is no body to exhume to obtain new samples for testing.
So we have a possibly bogus autopsy and no samples for independent testing. But, in Virginia people are convicted on bogus evidence every day. In most places the case against me would have been laughed out of court, but in backward Radford, Virginia, the jury looked at all this shoddy evidence and convicted me. And not to any reasonably short sentence. They gave me 32 1/2 years! Of which I’ve served 14 so far.
Oh, that local medical examiner, William Massello, is in disgrace since he was dead wrong in at least three cases, allowing murders go free. He identified the bones of one murder victim as a ‘stray animal,’ and said two murdered women had died of natural causes. New autopsies showed both died from manual strangulation. I consider Massello (I refuse to dignity him with the title ‘Dr.) a dangerous quack. Dr. Gormley called him, “A problem that has left the state.”. Meanwhile, I’m in prison, and he is living well in North Dakota as that state’s Chief Medical Examiner. North Dakota must have very low standards. And no one official gives a damn!
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author, former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine and veteran contributor to this blog. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read additional articles by Bob Shell, click here:
Editor’s Note: If you like Bob Shell’s blog posts, you’re sure to like his new book, COSMIC DANCE by Bob Shell (ISBN: 9781799224747, $ 12.95 book, $ 5.99 eBook) available now on Amazon.com . The book, his 26th, is a collection of essays written over the last twelve years in prison, none published anywhere before. It is subtitled, “A biologist’s reflections on space, time, reality, evolution, and the nature of consciousness,” which describes it pretty well. You can read a sample section and reviews on Amazon.com. Here’s the link: https://tonyward.com/bob-shell-the-jeffersonian-court/
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