Werner Spitz

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Werner U. Spitz, M.D. (born August 22, 1926) is a forensic pathologist who has worked on a number of high-profile cases, including the investigations of the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. He also testified at the trials of Casey Anthony and Phil Spector, the civil trial against O.J. Simpson, and consulted on the investigation of JonBenet Ramsey's death.^[1]

He authored the book Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death: Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation; an important book in the field often referred to as "the bible of forensic pathology".^[2][3]

Biography

Werner Spitz was born in 1926 to Siegfried and Anna Spitz in Stargard, Germany, which is now part of modern day Poland. With the growing antisemitism in Germany, his family fled to Israel when he was a child. Spitz's father, a physician, got Werner a job working in a medical examiner's office where he was charged with cleaning and other small duties. Spitz eventually began assisting with the autopsies and he recalls assisting with the autopsy of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's husband in 1951. He began medical school at the Geneva University in Switzerland. After four years in Geneva, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem established the university's Medical School and he transferred, receiving his medical doctorate after an additional three years. He graduated at the age of 27.^[4][5]

Spitz moved to America in 1959. His decision to leave his native Israel was partly inspired by the lack of need for his chosen career path in the area. "In seven years in Israel, there was only one murder." He said. "It just wasn't the right place for a forensic pathologist."^[4]

Work as a forensic pathologist

In 1969, Spitz testified on behalf of Joseph and Gwen Kopechne, the parents of Mary Jo Kopechne, who died following a car accident in the vehicle of Ted Kennedy. Kopechne was presumed to have died from drowning after Kennedy's car drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick island and plunged into the water. Kopechne's parents were seeking to prevent her body from being exhumed and autopsied. Spitz testified that the autopsy was unnecessary and the available evidence was sufficient to conclude that Kopechne died from drowning. The judge sided with Kopechne's parents and denied the request for exhumation.^[6][7]

In 1975, Spitz was asked to work as an advisor to both the Rockefeller Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He reviewed the autopsy performed 12 years earlier on president John F. Kennedy by military pathologists. “They botched that autopsy,” Spitz said. “They had absolutely no experience in forensic pathology.” He attributed the flaws in the investigation to the fact that at that time in the United States, forensic pathology was in its infancy. Despite his conclusion that the original investigation was flawed, he agreed with the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the shooting.^[5]

In 1979, Spitz consulted with the same committees on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The committee determined that King was killed by one rifle shot by James Earl Ray.^[8]

In 2011, he testified for the defense in the trial of Casey Anthony for the death of her child. He disagreed with the prosecution's medical examiner Jan Garavaglia that the death could be ruled a homicide based on the autopsy, calling her work "shoddy". Garavaglia admitted that the cause of death could not be ascertained by the autopsy she performed, but ruled it a homicide based on the circumstances. He criticized her for failing to open the skull and test sediment found in the skull that he believed to be proof that she decomposed on her side instead of in the position in which she was found. He disagreed with the state's theory that duct tape found next to Caylee's body was used as a murder weapon, saying it is much more likely that the duct tape was placed after her death to hold the mandible in place when moving the body. He also believes that the placement of Caylee's hair was staged by someone before being photographed.^[9]

Spitz is a professor of pathology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan and an adjunct professor of pathology at the University of Windsor in Canada.^[4] He has authored a book entitled: Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death: Guidelines for the Application of Pathology to Crime Investigation, an important book in the field often referred to as "the bible of forensic pathology".^[2][3]

List of notable cases

• President John F. Kennedy^[5][10]
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Florence Ballard
• Lisa McPherson
• Richard Ramirez
• "Preppy Murder Trial" of Robert Chambers
• O.J. Simpson civil trial
• Jon Benet Ramsey
• Caylee Anthony
• Lana Clarkson's death at the home of Phil Spector
• Mary Jo Kopechne
• Shooting of Renisha McBride
• Rodney Reed
• Shooting of Antonio Zambrano-Montes^[11]

References