Medical examiner subject of attack
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Medical examiner O.C. Smith, who has worked on some of the city’s most puzzling deaths, is at the center of another perplexing case: He was attacked over the weekend, bound with barbed wire and left with a bomb tied to his body. Smith, 49, was attacked as he left work Saturday night and was found 21/2 hours later lying in a parking lot.
A bomb squad removed the device and Smith escaped without serious injury, returning to the scene with minor cuts and bruises to assist authorities. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, including a profiler, and the FBI were called in.
The motive for the attack remains unknown, but authorities believe Smith’s work in helping police investigate murders and suicides plays a role. As medical examiner, Smith performs autopsies on murder victims from throughout western Tennessee and often testifies in court.
Among his recent cases was the death of Harvard University biologist Don Wiley, whose accidental fall from a Memphis bridge in December fueled fears of terrorist kidnappings.
The medical examiner also helped identify the body of Katherine Smith, 49, a state driver’s license examiner who was found burned beyond recognition in February the day before a hearing on federal charges of helping five Middle Eastern men obtain fake driver’s licenses. No one has been charged in her death.
O.C. Smith’s colleagues describe him as a dedicated professional. Deputy Police Chief Bob Wright said Smith takes his work extremely seriously.
“You call him at 2 o’clock in the morning and say you’ve got a body and he’s there,” said Wright, a former homicide detective.
Smith, who has declined to talk with reporters since the attack, was left in the parking lot of the Shelby County Regional Forensic Center on the campus of the University of Tennessee medical school. He suffered a burn on his face from a chemical thrown or sprayed in his eyes to subdue him.
Gene Marquez, the ATF agent in charge in Memphis, said the bomb strapped to Smith was similar to another “unsophisticated” explosive device found in March in a hallway near Smith’s lab.
Both devices were designed to hurt people, Marquez said.
Police have not publicly made a link between the explosives and a letter threatening Smith that was sent to the district attorney’s office in June 2001.
The anonymous letter was sent while a judge was hearing evidence in the case of convicted murderer Philip Workman, whose attorneys were trying to get his death sentence overturned. The attorneys challenged the validity of Smith’s laboratory tests, which had aided prosecutors.
Smith’s testimony supported Workman’s conviction on charges of murdering a Memphis police officer in 1981. Workman doesn’t deny taking part in a shootout with police but says the fatal bullet was fired by a fellow officer, not him. The courts have stayed the execution and Workman remains on death row.
The typed letter accused Smith of lying and referred to Workman as an innocent “LAMB OF GOD.”
“Long have I waited for my HOLY ORDER to fight against the DOCTOR-KILLER abortionists, but now I know OUR LORD was saving me for something larger,” the letter said.
The letter writer said he was incensed by a claim by one of Workman’s attorneys that Smith had shaded his testimony against Workman. Smith said at the time that he had not received any letters himself but was taking the threats “very seriously.”
Smith was named chief medical examiner in January 1999 after working as an assistant pathologist in Memphis for more than 20 years.
Known as an expert on firearms and ballistics, Smith is a captain in the Naval Reserves Medical Corps and served active duty in Desert Storm. He also is an associate professor of forensic pathology at the medical school where his office located.
He once said in a newspaper interview that he picked Memphis as his place to practice forensic pathology because the medical examiner’s office was associated with a medical school and because the city had a high murder rate.
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On the Net:
Medical examiner: www.co.shelby.tn.us
ounty-gov/divisions/ealth-serv
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