`CORONER TO THE STARS' SAYS GOODBYE : DEMOTED MEDICAL EXAMINER RETIRES FROM EXILE IN COUNTY.Byline: Deborah Hastings Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. For three decades, his mouth got him in trouble. In 1981, Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner A public official charged with investigating all sudden, suspicious, unexplained, or unnatural deaths within the area of his or her appointed jurisdiction. A medical examiner differs from a Coroner in that a medical examiner is a physician. Thomas Noguchi, a k a the ``coroner to the stars'' and the model for TV's ``Quincy,'' told the world that actors Natalie Wood and William Holden were drunk when they died. In 1968, he disputed 75 witnesses to the assassination Assassination See also Murder. assassins Fanatical Moslem sect that smoked hashish and murdered Crusaders (11th—12th centuries). [Islamic Hist.: Brewer Note-Book, 52] Brutus conspirator and assassin of Julius Caesar. [Br. of Robert F. Kennedy, who said Sirhan Sirhan fired repeatedly from a distance of several feet, standing directly in front of the senator. After performing a seven-hour autopsy, Noguchi said one of the bullets entered just behind Kennedy's ear, fired so close to his head there were powder burns on the presidential candidate's hair. Politicians and Hollywood didn't take kindly to such outspokenness. But no amount of pressure or disciplinary action shut Noguchi up. By 1982, county officials were fed up. They accused him of mismanagement mis·man·age tr.v. mis·man·aged, mis·man·ag·ing, mis·man·ag·es To manage badly or carelessly. mis·man  age·ment n. , making improper public statements and using company time for personal business. He was demoted to staff pathologist and relegated to the basement of Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center. Seventeen years after being exiled and 38 years after entering the county morgue morgue (morg) a place where dead bodies may be kept for identification or until claimed for burial. morgue n. , Noguchi retired this month at age 72. And he doesn't regret a word. ``I have no qualms about anything I said during that period. What do I care?'' Noguchi said recently, sitting in a county office. ``I don't need to adjust the facts for some political reason.'' Los Angeles' doctor of the dead, whose coroner colleagues planned a retirement party Friday night, had many legendary cases, and he talked about them all, too. He determined that heroin killed Janis Joplin, that an injection of heroin and cocaine snuffed the life of John Belushi and that Marilyn Monroe swallowed 40 to 50 Nembutal capsules. Noguchi announced that Wood and Holden were inebriated inebriated (i·nēˑ·brē·āˈ·t  d),adj intoxicated. because he believed they could have lived if sober. ``The public should know about the effects of alcohol,'' he said. Despite witness statements about Kennedy's shooting, ``only one reliable source of information comes in a situation like this, and that is from the dead person.'' He did not go quietly when the county Board of Supervisors The examples and perspective in this article or section may represent an unduly geographically limited view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. The Board of Supervisors is the body governing counties in the U.S. demoted him. It wasn't the first time he'd been accused of impropriety. In 1969, he was suspended, but eventually cleared, of a colleague's charges that Noguchi was addicted to fame and amphetamines Amphetamines Sympathomimetic amines; sometimes called speed; synthetic chemicals that stimulate the central nervous system. Mentioned in: Weight Loss Drugs amphetamines , and had once prayed for a fully loaded jumbo jet to crash into a hotel. He sued the county over his demotion de·mote tr.v. de·mot·ed, de·mot·ing, de·motes To reduce in grade, rank, or status. [de- + (pro)mote. , pursuing his case to the state Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. ``I felt terrible,'' Noguchi said. ``But I am not a quitter quit·ter n. One who gives up easily. Noun 1. quitter - a person who gives up too easily individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul - a human being; "there was too much for one person to do" . I would never quit.'' And so he walked across the street to County/USC. But not before telling reporters he was being sent to Siberia. He found a sign on the door of his new office. ``Welcome to Siberia,'' it said. ``I liked that,'' Noguchi said with a laugh, in the gallows humor gallows humor, n a dark or morbid sense of humor unique to people who deal with suffering and tragedy—for example, patients who are terminally ill joking about their illness or death as a means of coping with the illness. of coroners and cops. ``So I wrote my name under it and left it there.'' He's been there since, teaching, doing autopsies and writing books. He tried his hand at murder mysteries, like Patricia Cornwell, another coroner worker-turned-novelist, but with considerably less success. Yet Noguchi's nonfiction ``Coroner,'' describing his experiences with the bodies of Belushi, Monroe and others, sold a million copies, he said. Now the former coroner-to-the-stars wants to be a witness-for-hire in civil trials. Or a television commentator. Noguchi, who was divorced the year he was demoted and has never remarried, says he isn't keen on retiring, but his civil servant pension is fully vested - he can collect his full salary without working. ``I'm a character,'' he said. ``I'll be just fine.'' CAPTION(S): 2 Photos PHOTO (1) ``I have no qualms about anything I said during that period. What do I care? I don't need to adjust the facts for some political reason.'' - Thomas Noguchi Former chief medical examiner for Los Angeles County (2) Thomas Noguchi, the outspoken former chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County, retired this month after 38 years. Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press |
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