Removing the key and turning the knob in one quick motion, he steps soundlessly

into the dark room. "I love to enter the crime scene from the kitchen," he

announces. "People's minute-to-minute movements are registered here. I

routinely open the refrigerator to get people's life-styles: the type of food

they like, where they buy, how much they pay, how they wrap. In one homicide I

investigated, the homeowner returned early, surprising the burglar, so the

burglary ended in murder. But the burglar was hungry, so he had a bite to eat

before leaving. We found distinct teeth marks in the cheese!"

The enthusiastic speaker is Thomas T. Noguchi, renowned medical detective and

forensic scientist. Born in Japan in 1927, he arrived in the United States when

he was twenty-five and already an M.D. Noguchi made headlines in 1962 when he

performed the autopsy on Marilyn Monroe. He had been a member of the Los

Angeles medical examiner's office a scant year when he got the nod to conduct

the star's autopsy, superseding his senior colleagues because he alone was

board certified in both clinical and anatomic pathology. The public and

Noguchi's peers were impressed with the meticulous quality of his examination.

Eyeballing virtually every square millimeter of Monroe's skin, Noguchi failed

to find a single injection mark. Combining his evaluation of Monroe's internal

organs with lab tests for drug residues, he issued his often contested

verdict:

suicide by ingestion of massive quantities of Nembutal and chloral hydrate.

Monroe's demise seemed to prophesy the Sixties as a decade of drug excess.

Deputy Medical Examiner Noguchi, skilled in toxicological procedure and

instrumentation, rose rapidly, becoming L.A.'s second chief medical examiner in

1967. Scarcely half a year after his appointment, Robert F. Kennedy was

assassinated. Remembering the bunglings by government doctors in the John

Kennedy autopsy, Noguchi promised himself: No Dallas this time. He devised an

unprecedented ballistics test to pinpoint the distance of the gun muzzle from

the senator's head and confirmed it with infrared photography of hair shavings

from around the fatal wound. In doing so, he refuted dozens of eyewitness

reports of the event that suggested the chilling possibility that Sirhan Sirhan

may not have been the sole gunman.

If the RFK autopsy greatly expanded the notion of what constitutes relevant

physical evidence, the 1969 Sharon Tate-La Bianca investigation showed the

ultimate value of "the psychological autopsy," or character profile, in tracing

an assailant. Rejecting the police hypothesis that the bloody mass murder was a

drug-related vendetta, Noguchi called in veteran psychiatrist Frederick Hacker.

Hacker's detailed portrait of the killer fit Charles Manson to a tee.

In 1969 Noguchi was fired for going over the head of County Administrative

Officer Lin Hollinger to get increased funding. After several months of heated

debate he was reinstated at a Civil Service Commission hearing. Throughout the

Seventies he waged an uphill battle to modernize his office and extend the

range of its operations. He realized that he needed more than just increased

manpower. Unexplained homicides in L.A. doubled and finally quadrupled in the

Seventies; and although drug overdose deaths peaked from 1970 to 1972, the

sheer number of drugs in use, especially homemade designer hallucinogens, began

to multiply. The Forensic Science Center opened in 1972, equipped with state-of-the-art

autopsy facilities and drug-testing, ballistics, and tissue-evaluation

equipment. And Noguchi was among the first big-city medical examiners to put

together a staff of specially trained crime-scene experts.

Death weds the body to the crime scene. And tradition, wary of unwittingly

destroying vital clues, invariably leaves the body unexamined until autopsy.

Noguchi, always the iconoclast, is a proponent of the spot test of the corpse

at the scene. Evidence, he notes, can be everything -- but rarely is it self-evident.

Recognition of patterns overrules "mindless collecting of lab

samples." An abstract painter, he envisions his task as "the reconstruction of

a sequence of events, integrating everything down to the minutest detail" -- an

intrinsically artistic obsession.

In the Seventies Noguchi began to appear with ever-increasing regularity on

radio and TV. It wasn't enough to appear as an expert witness in courthouses

across the country, presenting startling new forms of evidence to skeptical

judges and wide-eyed juries. Noguchi seemed compelled to report his findings --

to spell out scenarios in all their intimate detail -- to the public. Critics

felt he was more than just an exuberant scientist acting as a cheerleader for his profession.

Pejoratively billed as "Coroner to the Stars" and "The Celebrity Coroner," Noguchi was accused

of basking in a rather tarnished limelight and of literally trying to "steal the last scene" from Hollywood

greats of two decades.

But as a scientist-doctor, Noguchi believes, the chief medical examiner is a

public servant who must answer to his real constituency -- the living. Given

the prevalence of media hype, the distortion and fabrication of evidence in police

and FBI crime labs, and the willful misrepresentation of this evidence

in court, the coroner is the watchdog for the quality of life in the community. Autopsy, says Noguchi, is "the ultimate means of quality control for all medical care." Also, abuse of children and the elderly, rapes and drownings,

defective appliances, unsafe work conditions, environmental and food

pollution, insurance scams all fall within his jurisdiction.

That responsibility to the public ended in 1982, when he was forced to quit the

medical examiner's office. It was not the public's disapproval of his

alleged "publicity-hound shenanigans" or "mismanagement of his office" that did

him in. It was primarily money and the bureaucratic mind: The ghost of

Proposition 13 had cast an ever-lengthening shadow over all public-works

funding. And finally, Noguchi's all-too-graphic reconstruction of William

Holden's last violent, solitary moments gave the county supervisors the excuse

they needed. Meeting in closed session, they demanded his resignation. (Still

numb from the news, Noguchi called up his office and was told John Belushi had

died. Never one to wait on protocol, he went to examine the body of the dead

comedian.) During the months that followed, Noguchi instigated a civil-service hearing vand -- solidly endorsed by police, co-workers, and forensic leaders -- won

recommendation for reinstatement in February 1983. Nonetheless, 13 days later

the Civil Service Commission voted to override the decision: Noguchi was fired.

Despite an unsuccessful appeal, he is anything but bitter. As a full

professor

of pathology at Loma Linda University, the University of Southern

California,

and the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine, Noguchi

is

presently instructing interns, residents of pathology, and postgraduate

physicians in anatomic and forensic pathology. He coauthored Coroner, a best-

selling account of his most spectacular cases, and its sequel, Coroner at

Large, in which he interprets notorious and controversial court cases outside

his own jurisdiction and unravels forensic puzzles from history. Today he

hasn't quite decided whether his third book will be a study of the terrorist

mind or an "investigation of death by stabbing, concentrating on wounds and

weaponry." Noguchi was interviewed on four successive evenings at home in Pasadena by

writer Douglas Stein. Finishing after 10:00 PM on Saturday, the two drove off

to celebrate at one of Noguchi's favorite restaurants, The Plum Tree, in

Chinatown. Before taking their order, the waitress said, "Dr. Noguchi, you are

the second celebrity here tonight. The first was Superman."

What does your approach entail?

Noguchi

The medical examiner begins by visiting the crime or death scene to see for

himself the circumstances surrounding the incident. Then he directs his

investigators to interview witnesses and collect evidence -- including the

clothing of the deceased. He supervises the documentation of the event with

layer-by-layer photography. Specimens are taken for toxicological study. But

more important, after the autopsy is performed and data assembled, he should

address himself to the traditional "five W's." What was the cause of death?

Where did it happen? When it happened -- time of death -- connects both to the

sequence of events and the reason why it happened. The last W, of course, is

who -- the person responsible.

Generally, a medical examiner does not address these issues. He thinks that

as

a scientist, he needn't worry about them. I think that's wrong! Only when you

look from the standpoint of a lawyer, judge, or detective will you be able to

interpret evidence.

OMNI What instruments do you use to investigate a crime scene?

Noguchi

Many tools are such everyday items as the magnifying glass, six-power

binoculars, and surgical forceps. Less well-known are ultraviolet devices for

detection of such fluorescent materials as lipstick and semen, and infrared

for objects that retain heat. Portable X rays are used to see through walls,

uncovering hidden bullets and other crime clues.

Occasionally I take a small lab to the scene. The great dilemma is whether to

move the body or to examine it on the spot. The degree of lividity, or

discoloration, of the body is helpful in estimating how long it may have been

in a particular position. Lividity will pick up an almost Xerox copy of an

image -- show prints or impressions of an object contacting the body. Suppose a

person has lain on a coin -- it's maybe two or three minutes after we move the

body that lividity changes. The exact markings of the coin, like the

configurations of the face, will be clearly apparent. OMNI Is Alphonse Bertillon's technique applied today?

Noguchi Yes. Bertillon believed that everyone is built differently. He realized that by

measuring specific body features you could individualize criminals so they

couldn't disguise themselves. Fingerprinting, however, replaced his method,

Bertillonage, so those techniques were pretty much forgotten. I, however,

brought Bertillon into the twentieth century when I used the same techniques

in the case of Elmer McCurdy. There was a dummy hanging at the Six Million

Dollar Man shooting location at Nu-Pike fun house in Long Beach, California.

Some suggested the dummy was a mummy made of McCurdy, the notorious Oklahoma-

Kansas railroad bandit, killed in a shoot-out in 1911. Because bones don't

shrink after death and we had a picture of McCurdy at the time of death, we

were able to superimpose it onto an X ray of the dummy. The skeletons lined up

exactly, and the identification was positive.

This technique can go both ways: Forensic sculptors are beginning to

reconstruct the contours of a face almost from the skull. Perhaps you've seen

the movie Gorky Park, where the Soviet forensic scientist puts the muscles

and flesh back on the girl's skull? It's a difficult procedure but useful in

tracing missing persons. We tend to be preoccupied with the dead body, but I suggest that the body, or

its surroundings, be examined last. Much evidence is actually staring back at

you, but it may not be on the corpse. People often ignore the ceiling, one area

I always look to for clues. Spattered blood may be on it, for instance. We've

often found drugs stashed behind acoustic tiles. Sometimes tiles are replaced

to conceal bullet holes.

OMNI

Once in the autopsy room, what tools do you use?

Noguchi Of course, the scale is a vital instrument: It can tell me a lot about the

cause of death. Generally a heart weighs about three hundred fifty grams, so if

I find one weighing seven hundred grams, I know only certain conditions could have caused this -- such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, and certain lung

diseases. After a drowning lungs often weigh between eight hundred and nine

hundred grams, whereas a normal lung weighs about three hundred grams. If a

lung weighs more than a thousand grams, there must either be a tumor or

pneumonia.

Chronic drug use changes organ weight. Narcotic addicts' lungs are heavy

because the injected junk contains additives. The Iymph nodes around the heart

enlarge and contain crystals -- mostly talc, sometimes fibers. Talc, like

asbestos, scars the lungs. Many Iymph glands, the spleen, and the liver are

unusually enlarged because these organs are struggling to break down and

detoxify drugs. Drugs are hard, too, on endocrine glands. Often the adrenal

glands, whose work increases with stress, show gross changes. Chronic drug use

also causes a wasting of the gonads.

OMNI Why your persistent fascination with the wound itself?

Noguchi

My interest in wounds and bruises ties into the cause-and-effect relationship.

What caused the bruise and how long it's been in existence help to identify the assailant. It used to be a simple distinction between a recent or old bruise,

but now we are recognizing more characteristics, from which we can learn a

great deal. A bruise with scratches or abrasions not only yields an impression

of the object but also gives the direction and force of the application. Did the person fall, or was he struck by the object? Bruises have a whole spectrum of color changes. The fresh bruise is usually

purplish, the classic black-and-blue -- with swelling. After a day or two it

moves to purplish red, then reddish brown to light brown, and then yellow.

Before turning yellow it often takes on a greenish hue. The cycle usually takes

two weeks, although a deep-seated bruise can take longer to resolve. Histamine

and serotonin are the first chemicals to appear upon injury. We hope to define

these changes more in terms of hourly intervals by using the electron

microscope and sophisticated analyses that target certain chemicals and enzymes.

OMNI We've arrived at the classic dilemma: Did the wound happen before, after, or at

the moment of death? Noguchi

That's always a great challenge. If it happened before death, the wound should show some tissue reaction, whether bleeding or first signs of healing. After

death a bruise doesn't occur because there's no blood pressure to cause swelling. A knife wound after death, where the skin is cut and subcutaneous tissue is exposed, has a pale yellow appearance -- without bloodstains.

The couple of seconds around death is known as the perimortem. Blood pressure

is sufficiently down, so tissue reactions are vague. The heart is no longer

functioning, but blood is still fluid. If I give a severe blow by hand, muscles

contract. Sometimes a blow at this stage will create the appearance of a

bruise, but the swelling is often lacking; there's skin and tissue breakage,

but you get only a leakage rather than a hemorrhage, as when blood is actively

pumped into the wound. It's often nerve-racking to deal with these phenomena -- whether the person is

still alive or just dead. But it helps in establishing a sequence of events.

Many times a person facing an assailant is shot in front and then, realizing

the need to escape, turns and runs. He then receives several more shots all

over. The first shot shows a typical full-blown antemortem [before-death]

reaction. But when the victim is shot through the heart, the blood pressure

drops quickly, so tissue reaction is reduced, telling us enough to establish

the sequence of wounds. OMNI

Rigor mortis is oneoof the ultimate cliches of bad horror movies. What's really going on?

Noguchi

Rigor generally develops after about an hour and almost always in a descending

order. The jaw and neck stiffen first, then the shoulders and upper arms,

followed by the fingers; and the legs are last. Full rigor takes ten to twelve

hours to complete. This gradually lessens, and twenty-four to thirty-six hours

after death usually no rigidity is seen. When rigor mortis subsides, it is

usually in this same descending order, with the jaw becoming loose, the neck

supple, and finally the leg relaxing -- almost like magic. This top-to-bottom

order was a mystery for several centuries, but now we understand why. After

death oxygen is no longer supplied to muscles through blood circulation. The

resulting lactic-acid buildup causes muscle fibers to become swollen and

coagulated, thus stiffer and stiffer. Why the descending order? Because muscle

fiber is very short in the jaw, a little longer in the neck, and longest in

the leg. When muscles loosen, it's because tissues decay and the smallest

fibers break down first.

OMNI

With the creation of the Forensic Science Center, you were a pioneer in using

high-tech equipment for analysis.

Noguchi Decades ago we used only a large magnifying glass to study wounds. And we still

use it. But in the last ten years we've begun to use sophisticated instruments

long available to other scientific fields. The scanning electron microscope [SEM] is indeed our top weapon against criminals. My department was the first

in the country to purchase the SEM with an energy-dispersive spectrometer. The

SEM magnifies up to a hundred thousand times. The energy-dispersive

spectrometer determines the composition of the particles magnified by the SEM

and identifies the proportions of the various elements. Today the L.A. medical

examiner's office uses a third-generation SEM to analyze wound debris that is

invisible to the eye. A man is shot, for example, and the bullets go completely through him and are

lost. How do we trace the gun? Okay, we excise the entry and exit wounds and

place sections under the SEM. Because any object passing through living skin

leaves a tiny trace, we learn the composition of the bullet. Bullets are all

different: A Colt is different from a Remington. And there is the residue of

the bullet casing: When a gun is fired the pin strikes the primer, which

explodes into gas, which pushes the bullet into the barrel. The SEM can tell

the type of casing -- usually a copper-zinc combination. From a casing

composition that's marred with barrel scrapings, we can often get back to the

specific gun.

But that's not good enough for me. What about the primer? It's usually a

combination of lead, antimony, or bismuth. The bullet carries the primer

material into the wound. Primers vary from batch to batch. So somewhere in the

wound track, usually at entry and exit, these signs of primer, casing, and

bullet are dropped. There are all kinds of "fingerprints." One of my favorites

is the wound itself and its contents

. OMNI What about the transmission electron microscope [TEM]?

Noguchi

The TEM is toxicological, not ballistic. It projects images of tissue cross

sections up to powers of a half million. We can see molecules, viruses, and

can visualize the damage done to cells in poison cases. I have seen a

revolution in drug-testing analysis. When I joined this office in 1960, we

depended mostly on paper chromatography. We could distinguish Nembutal from

Seconal this way. Next came the ultraviolet [UV] spectrometer. This uses a UV

beam to project drugs, almost like curves on a graph. Various drugs show

different degrees of absorption on a UV beam. Barbiturates such as Nembutal

and

Seconal are absorbed in a similar area. Gas chromatography, which specifically

isolates each drug, was available but not fully used in 1962, when Monroe

died.

Today our most powerful, definitive instrument is a gas chromatograph hooked

into a mass spectrometer with a computer system (GCMS). It analyzes drugs down

to the molecule and is essential to differentiate various hallucinogens. You

could, say, distinguish between a billionth of a gram of LSD and PCP with it.

OMNI

Have death rates for drugs changed throughout the twentieth century?

Noguchi

Drug addiction is, sadly, a constant in modern culture. Only the specific drugs

change. Prior to World War II, barbiturates and heroin predominated. During

the Fifties amphetamines and other stimulants gained popularity. In 1966 and

1967 there was a heroin-overdose crisis, largely centered on returning Vietnam-vet addicts.

The period from 1966 to 1972 had the highest incidence of drug-

related deaths, mostly due to heroin. Other lethal drugs were barbiturates,

methaqualone, Darvon, and a combination of prescription drugs. Today cocaine and phencyclidine -- PCP -- are really endemic to L.A. and San Francisco.

PCP came on the scene rather suddenly. Unlike cocaine and heroin, it can be

manufactured in a garage. You don't need a degree in chemistry. Even today most

PCP busts are made when the garage explodes, the fire department rushes in, and

we find huge, clandestine laboratories. Generally the hot-water heater is in

the garage. The PCP process requires ether extraction, and ether is a heavy

substance that stays on the ground. All of a sudden, boom -- the whole building

is aflame.

OMNI

It's said that PCP triggers violence.

Noguchi More than any other drug -- and self-inflicted, too. For example, at five-thirty one morning,

while people were waiting for the bus, a nude man was seen fighting with a telephone pole. Then he began fighting with the police and eventually suffered

multiple gunshot wounds. But before that he managed to pull apart some Smith &

Wesson handcuffs. We were amazed when we found they had not been defective; we

subjected an identical pair to an engineering stress test. It took over five

hundred pounds per square inch to break them. Sure enough, he'd broken his

wrist in the process but felt no pain. Many studies have failed to explain this

PCP reaction. Another case: Another naked man went up to his room on the second floor of an

apartment building and jumped out of the building, saying he was flying like a

bird. He landed, got up, and then climbed to the third floor and leaped, this

time breaking a leg. Then he went up to the fourth floor and jumped farther,

unfortunately landing on a fence. He suffered major injuries and died. This

sort of horrible incident is fairly typical: Once simply will not do for the

person on hallucinogens. OMNI With Monroe, wasn't it a question of suicide versus murder: whether the fatal

drugs were swallowed or injected? Noguchi The autopsy found a large amount of Nembutal and chloral hydrate, but the case

wasn't typical because the stomach was empty. I did not see any residue,

although the stomach and gastric lining were much reddened. But this is

standard for barbiturate abuse. And this was not the first time we'd seen an

empty stomach. Like the liver, it gets used to handling the drug and passes it

quickly into the small intestine. Because I couldn't find needle marks, I

still

believe the drugs were swallowed.

Monroe's liver actually had a level of stored barbiturates three to four times

that of her blood. Yet her blood level was high enough -- equivalent to about

forty or fifty capsules of regular-strength sleeping pills. For the average

person, ten to fifteen are potentially lethal.

OMNI Even so, doesn't that show that someone, maybe her therapist or nurse, for

instance, injected her with these drugs?

Noguchi

This challenge has been made -- and even today I don't think we can tell. Some

speculate that she may have been injected in a difficult-to-detect area like

the scalp.

OMNI

What about that bruise on her hip that you find so mysterious? Could that have been a cover for a needle track?

Noguchi What does that bruise mean? I don't know! Your idea is interesting. With an

injection you have only minute skin breakage, and of course, after some hours

it starts healing. When death occurs shortly after the injection, as with John

Belushi, the breakage of the skin is still visible, and by squeezing the skin

you can see the blood come out. But in Monroe's case I could not find a needle

mark on the bruised area.

OMNI You note that her therapist used to inject her. He saw her the day before.

Would that give the track time to heal?

Noguchi I would think so. I think she received an injection from him twenty-four hours prior to her death. There are many mysteries. I recommended that an agency such as a grand jury or D.A.'s office reopen the case. OMNI Why are we so obsessed with how Monroe died? Noguchi Perhaps this case keeps returning because she was one of the last superstars and in many ways an American dream. But I think most of our concern and inquiry is really about her relation to the Kennedy brothers. It's this amazing double involvement with those figures, who were as charismatic as she -- both of whom were assassinated. OMNI In many instances, whether it be after the death of Robert Kennedy or John Belushi, you've shown yourself to be a man who doesn't wait on protocol. Isn't this legally as well as politically risky? Noguchi Yes, but the coroner just hasn't been active enough in handling death

investigations at the scene. Traditionally, a number of no-man's-lands exist.

Police don't move in, coroner doesn't move in. Who's going to take over? For

example, after a torrential rain the whole topsoil of the old cemetery in

Verdugo Hills, California, started sliding. It happened to contain over a

hundred bodies that floated first across the street, then into the yards and

into the living rooms of houses and the doorway of the supermarket. It was a

tragic scene. My staff tried to ascertain who had jurisdiction by calling a

county lawyer. I said, "Forget it, I am going." I was the first on the scene to

represent a governmental agency, and I ordered the public works' heavy

bulldozers in. Those bodies posed a health hazard. So we moved.

The Verdugo Hills persons had drowned in a flood and had been buried soaking

wet in caskets. These bodies changed to an almost soaplike consistency that

resists decay. The corpses looked more like horror-movie ghouls than ordinary

corpses. Adipocere, as it's called, happens when a combination of moisture and

highly alkaline soil reacts with fat tissue and solidifies into a soaplike

consistency. OMNI

You say an investigator must be systematic and detached. But you often do spontaneous spot tests. Is there a conflict?

Noguchi

I say, "Jump right in but stay remote." That's me in particular. I'd like to

think it's not a conflict but a wise choice. In one case a lady kidnapped from

a supermarket outside L.A. was found dead in a field in L.A. Was she killed in

another county or here? After walking through the field, I saw the body. She

looked like, well, she'd been dumped. By examining her body through her

clothing, I thought I could tell whether she'd been shot and brought by truck,

since there were tire treads. By cutting through her dress and evaluating the

wound, I concluded that she'd been shot right there, and the assailant had to

get out of the truck to shoot her -- it was an execution-type shooting. His

footprints allowed us to catch him. If I'd waited to do the autopsy, those

prints would have disappeared. OMNI When you autopsied Robert Kennedy, you began at the toe. Is this a "ceiling-down" procedure applied to the body?

Noguchi

Exactly. I am very concerned with getting too close to the dead body -- one may lose the overall grasp. I chose to begin the RFK autopsy from the toe to make sure I didn't overlook anything. I didn't want to be influenced by the injury alone. I was under great pressure. The more the pressure, the more steadfast I become, and that is a style a medical detective should have. The senator had three gunshot wounds -- a head wound behind his right ear and

two through the right armpit. To reconstruct a scenario of the shooting, the

gunshot wound to the head wouldn't tell us much, except how close the assailant

may have been. We must remember the body is constantly moving, with arms

especially changing position. When you examine a body, it's in a horizontal

state, so I had to physically and mentally place his body in an upright

position to interpret the wound configurations. When a bullet penetrates the

skin, it generally leaves a round hole. But the wound to the senator's armpit

was not round. To make it round, I had to move the arm fifteen degrees forward

after raising it to ninety degrees. I had to do that to understand the relation

of the bullet corridor within the body to the body's movement. The senator's

head wound came from a back-to-front direction; the second wound was on the

side, and the third was slightly shifted, indicating he was turning clockwise.

From this reenactment it's probable that the head wound was the first one, and RFK raised his arm after it in a protective reaction. The sequence of shots hasn't been absolutely established, but that's my opinion. We know that the three gunshot wounds were at close range. I had my staff construct a likeness of Kennedy's head and attach pig ears to this model, which was covered with cloth to absorb gunpowder. We hoped to create identical powder tattooings found at the edge of the right ear by using the suspected weapon and by shooting from various distances into the right mastoid. Moving away by distances of an inch, only when the muzzle was three inches behind the mastoid, around one inch behind the edge of the ear, did I get the exact duplicate of the actual death-shot powder tattoo. We also did infrared photography and X rays of the bits of hair taken from around the wound. This determined the powder spread and confirmed the pig ear test. When I testified before the grand jury, the deputy D.A. said, "You mean three feet?" I said, "No, three inches." And he said, "If you made a mistake, you can still change it." But I said [laughs], "I'm not going to change it." OMNI What made the RFK investigation such a prototype for future political deaths? Noguchi It was exceptionally complete, and there were official observers. The examination of his clothing, especially the removal of bits of hair for testing prior to his surgery, was not then typical. To reenact the sequence of events of his shooting, we needed expert examination from many agencies. This greatly expanded our notion of relevant physical evidence. OMNI How do forensic scientists differ from other scientists? Noguchi The public expects unusual personalities, but we are temperamentally similar to lab researchers. Yet medical detectives are congenial and able to work closely with police, juries, and lawyers. Also forensic leaders never give up -- we work at a case even though many years may go by. Gallows humor, or better, morgue humor, is a safety valve for us. Because of the pressure of being surrounded by dead bodies and death scenes, we tend to see matters in a different vein. OMNI Do you see forensic science and detection as an art form? Noguchi I do. I think my style is unique. Each step is a new experience. If someone is to break tradition, I will be the first to break it. My interest in art morphology -- oil painting and sketching -- subconsciously helps me. The pathologist should recognize patterns as a visual art. At the death scene I probably see the same things colleagues or detectives see. I'm not only seeing; I'm recognizing and putting factors together. There's this different energy and intensity -- a sympathy, a burning desire to put it all together into a more understandable language. The deceased is speaking to you through forensic evidence that is glaring at you. But few recognize it. OMNI Your style seems to balance an Eastern receptivity with American assertiveness. Noguchi I try to reconcile them. Part of the unique combination, perhaps, comes from my Buddhist upbringing. In Japan death is very close and friendly. It's common for the family to have a miniature temple in the living room, where the children are expected to greet deceased grandparents by reporting the day's activities. Just before examination, although most of my staff doesn't notice it, I take a very short moment to respect the deceased. "Let the deceased speak for himself" is one of my favorite expressions. I repeat it to resident pathologists. I listen, not just look -- listen deeply. Bits of evidence are like words. By putting the evidence together you compose a sentence. The series of sentences becomes the statement of the deceased -- the deceased is the best witness. Forensic investigation is like moviemaking but in reverse. We arrive just after the last scene of the cowboy movie -- after the cowboys have been surrounded by the American Indians. Did the Union soldiers come to the rescue or not? From the available evidence -- fragments of the last scene of the fighting -- we try to make each frame, then the one before, and finally the whole movie. We kind of roll the projector backward -- to the title. OMNI Is the media notion of the "battle of the forensic titans" in court testimony hype or reality? Noguchi We aren't so emotional. We accept different opinions. Sometimes we are on the same side of the case, sometimes on opposite sides. And we clearly understand that if you are a "professional witness," your career will go badly. I greatly respected the late Keith Simpson [famous British coroner], though we disagreed on several big cases, including Marilyn Monroe. He thought the empty stomach showed she was injected and murdered. It was just the opposite with Roberto Calvi, where I thought he was murdered. OMNI Would you go into that 1981 case? Noguchi Calvi was a very respected top banker for the Vatican. He rose to prominence through special political connections, including Michele Sindona and his underworld associates. Weeks before Calvi died, four hundred million dollars disappeared. He fled to London and shortly thereafter was found hanging at Blackfriar's Bridge on the Thames about seven A.M. He was last seen alive about eleven P.M. the night before. Calvi's clothes were wet up to the armpits, meaning he was submerged in water at one time or another. High tide was about two-fifty A.M., but when the body was found at seven, it was almost low tide. If he were trying to hang himself, why would he jump into the water first? He was genuinely hanged -- he had the classic signature of hanging in terms of neck abrasions. At the first coroner's inquest, Simpson, who conducted the initial autopsy, said that it was a typical suicide hanging. But at the second inquest, when questioned by the attorney for Calvi's family, he admitted he couldn't be absolutely certain whether Calvi hanged himself or was hanged by someone else. It was never ascertained whether the hanging was suicide or homicide, and the jury rendered an open verdict, meaning they couldn't decide either. OMNI Didn't you suggest that he could have been immobilized, but not killed, by a drug not traceable after a few hours? Noguchi There are many compounds -- which, in the public interest, I'm reluctant to name -- that were difficult to trace. Now we can find most of them with the GCMS, provided we have computer data to cross-compare with our findings. More than two thousand compounds have been studied and are available for comparison. But some haven't been molecularly analyzed, so even the GCMS can't fathom the secret there. I suggested that Calvi was injected with a strong muscle relaxant extremely difficult to trace. Some hallucinogens, you see, metabolize so quickly that the original compound cannot be established. Because more and more drugs have half-lives of thirty minutes or less, our effort is now concentrated on finding the metabolites that linner for longer times. These can be pulled from the urine, kidney, or liver, depending on the drug. Some drugs, especially antidepressants and stimulants, have special affinities for brain nerve cells. OMNI You've considered many cases with missed evidence and fabrications in the lab. Are police, FBI, and military investigators often corrupt and incompetent? Noguchi I hope this isn't common, but in the major cases we find it often. These agencies have a tremendous stake in convicting an individual -- a mission to accomplish. And bungling and distortion of evidence have become more critical in the last twenty years because juries have grown to rely on forensic evidence as the prime basis for decision. They used to rely on confession, circumstantial evidence, eyewitness testimony. That was before forensic science entered the picture. As I see it, the judicial system -- with its imperfections -- has actually stimulated development of forensic science. Theatrical display has its place in court, but overall, painstaking evidence-presentation seems to be winning the well-publicized cases. Jack Ruby, the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald, was represented by Melvin Belli, a very powerful, dramatic attorney. And the results were not as good as expected. Even F. Lee Bailey has had some recent failings. Some of today's best lawyers are not colorful but very, very systematic. They try to plug all holes, make a case watertight. The styles of the scientist and the lawyer begin to converge. When science enters the courtroom, theatrical display exits. OMNI Why is it that eyewitness accounts are often distorted? Noguchi The human brain has a remarkable selectivity and subjectivity. Let's say you see this beautiful South Pacific beach. So you take a photograph but later are disappointed: You are looking at reality, and it is not nearly as beautiful as your remembered image. Well, testimony is very subjective -- people being influenced by their likings, past experience, and sounds. People see a crime in a split second, so their memories are highly imprecise. They may pick up a certain area, totally forgetting others. Putting all eyewitness accounts together, I'd say the repeated statements are probably the most reliable. OMNI Are crime patterns and percentages in L.A. different from those of other major

cities?

Noguchi L.A. County had fifty-five thousand people die in 1985; of those, we

investigated about seventeen thousand. Suicide victims totaled about fifteen

hundred; traffic accidents were slightly under fifteen hundred. Other accidents were around one thousand. About eighteen hundred were homicide victims. The

remaining ten thousand to eleven thousand were certified as death by natural

causes. The drug scene in L.A. is quite different from other cities'. L.A. now

leads in the heavy use of stimulants, and we are now concerned about designer

drugs that tend to begin as at-home chemistry operations, catch on, then move

east. Constantly changing the design of the drug has been a means of

circumventing the law. This is a sort of chemical serial murder -- Jack the

Ripper in chemical form. The drug designer keeps moving; when the authorities

enact a law making a specific substance illegal, he simply jumps into other

areas. And there are certain unique reasons why the L.A. drug problem continues. Hollywood has created a kind of artificial all-or-none attitude. This is the

entertainment capital of the world, and competition is especially intense.

With

a hit film or record comes great prestige, glamour, wealth -- and terrible

pressure to sustain yourself. OMNI Could you describe your invention, the negative knife cast?

Noguchi

Knife wounds are frustrating because there seem to be no identifying

characteristics. But I thought maybe we could trace a knife from its wound,

like we do a gun from its bullet hole. When the knife reaches a solid organ

like the liver, kidney, heart, or occasionally the brain, there's an excellent

opportunity to make a negative cast. We can fill the stab wound with a

radioactive medium such as barium sulphate and X-ray it. The X ray gives you

the shape of the knife, but it's essentially a two-dimensional picture -- not

really good enough. I researched many materials, things like dental fillings,

and found they all were too lightweight. None showed the detail I wanted, until

I found a metal containing mercury, called Wood's metal, which liquefies at the

temperature of boiling water. You inject it into the stab wound by syringe, and

it solidifies within five minutes. When you pull it out, you've got a three-D

copy of the knife. Sometimes the tip of the knife reaches bone, and the tiniest

bit breaks off. That tip is like a fingerprint.

OMNI

Will fingerprinting be suprrseded by more foolproof techniques?

Noguchi

Crime detection will continue to use common sense. Most fascinating to me,

though, is the DNA probe, which I'm contemplating developing within a few

years

as a means of identifying rapists. [DNA probes are synthetic fragments of DNA

that can pinpoint the precise location of a specific gene or detect a faulty

gene on an individual's chromosomes.] If you had the semen, with the probe you

could obtain the chromosomes -- unique as fingerprints. The DNA probe is an

exciting instrument for understanding genetic abnormalities. Maybe we could go

from the DNA probe to an understanding of the combination of genes that lead an

individual to murder and rape -- a fusion of genetic and psychological

profiles. I don't know how far we can go, but within a decade or two we'll

have

a method for enzyme-protein individualization as part of the identification

process. I hope to see the day when we do neurochemical studies of the deceased.

Profiles of adrenaline, norepinephrine, serotonin may tell us much about the

psychology of the dead person. We've been conducting "psychological" autopsies

for twenty-five years -- let's add neurochemical investigation of the spinal fluid and brain tissue.

And there is an absolutely futuristic idea -- like something out of Dick Tracy

This is the concept of the retina as a photographic film: I see you, my

murderer, but should I die, that image would remain! This idea is scary --

the "last image" as an electronic impulse that may be recaptured. In

computerized tomography we can rotate the CAT machine for an image of the

brain. Going further, we could key in an image from the visual center of the

occipital area. This is far-out, but I don't want to throw it away completely.

We need a whole battery of electronic and biomedical engineers. They would

compute the forces causing such injuries as bruises, contusions, and bone

fractures. The applications are widespread: from the understanding of such

incidents as the Challenger disaster to the specific dynamics of a boxing-arena

death. There is also an important thermal application of biomedical

engineering: Rate of body cooling could be used to indicate time of death. I

would also like to develop the software for a computer small enough to store

much of the background data for evaluating possible evidence at a crime scene.

I don't want to wait days or weeks for lab reports. I want to tap into a

warehouse of information based on similar cases, similar weapons, so I can make

spot tests right away. One cannot, and should not have to, remember the details

of all cases in the past. Say I'm looking at a head injury and it shows a

specific harpoon shape, one with a bit of a tail. I'd like to know what

instrument causes this wound. So I'd compare this imprint of an unknown

instrument to those of many thousands of other available weapons.

OMNI

What do you think will be the role of the forensic scientist in the future?

Noguchi Comprehensive medical-legal investigation will become an integral part of the

criminal-justice system. I also expect our work will be applied more to aid the

living -- victims of rape and nonfatal child abuse, the injured factory workers

in workman-disability cases, the convict requiring medical care in prison. Or

suppose a bullet is lodged near the spinal cord, and the assailant is awaiting

trial. Because the bullet cannot be removed, its striations cannot be compared

directly to those of the gun barrel. Techniques do exist to identify this

bullet while it's still in the victim's body, but our profession has not

stepped in to implement them.

The medical examiner should master a specific curriculum. The days when anyone

with experience in handling dead bodies can join the coroner's office should be

passe. The University of Southern California hopes to establish a program

leading to a Ph.D. in forensic medicine by 1987. And the subject of death vshould be continuously talked about in more honest terms. The American vtradition of whitewash eulogies, of letting sleeping dogs lie, of not writing

anything about death, is injurious to the living. There are lessons to be

learned from death. And because these death events are repeated over and over

again, we must strive to understand them.

OMNI

What do you think of Quincy? Was the TV show really modeled on you?

Noguchi

Jack Klugman asked me to endorse the production. I provided all the technical

help by assigning two of my deputies to the cast, and the first four hours of

the series were shot in our office. The presentation is accurate, though

highly

dramatized, with many episodes being composites of two or more real cases. I've

often joked that the only difference is that Quincy solves the crime in one

hour, while it takes us many months. I like Quincy because it expands my

concept of going beyond the traditional responsibility of the medical examiner,

which I firmly believe we have the right to do.

OMNI

As a painter, haven't you tried to render the essence of your experience?

Noguchi

I'm interested in giving artistic representation to the crime scene. Most

people perceive the dead body as still and the colors of death as gray, dark

green, or black. I see intense energy and use intense colors -- mostly red,

orange -- warm colors. I've been asked if I believe in reincarnation. In

literal terms of past lives and such, I don't, but the concept of the

separation of the spirit from the body at death is very real to me.

OMNI Why is the perfect crime so difficult to execute?

Noguchi

A killer usually chooses the most comfortable method, one that ties into his

upbringing. You just cannot intellectually conjure up a sophisticated murder

without the background. Most killers are conformists -- whether the small knife

for Latinos or the sword, with its symbolic message, for the samurai. And then,

it's impossible for a person to enter and leave a house with absolutely no

trace: There is always an exchange -- oil, soil, fiber. It takes a really sharp

intellect to handle this well. And disposing of the body is a very great

problem requiring special transportation. Time tends to be a problem, since

most crimes are committed in a hurry. I can theoretically create a very clean

murder, but I don't think I could actually do it. First, I know it is wrong;

and second, I get nervous because I know so much about how it can be detected.

You see, most murders are committed by amateurs. There is no university degree

in how to commit murder. There is no standard test. And you cannot easily

practice.

OMNI

Please continue.

Noguchi

I rest my case. [Pause] Well, okay. Most crimes are still committed by a person

known to have something to gain, especially revenge, by the killing. From

motive comes lead. Many unsolved murders are those where the killer seems to

have no personal connection to the victim -- the nameless, senseless killing is

very difficult. I believe, however, some murderer will soon start to use very

sophisticated, remote instruments. Of course, I'm very reluctant to say just

what. It's not appropriate for me to describe, step by step, how you can

commit

the perfect murder. And I've been asked many, many times. [Pause] One could

maybe simulate a natural event, like a heart attack, where in fact the heart

attack was induced . . . .