Tag Archives: Death

THE SUDDEN (SUSPICIOUS?) DEATH OF U.S. PRESIDENT WARREN G. HARDING

One hundred years ago, on August 2nd, 1923, Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States, suddenly died in a San Francisco hotel room. He was 57 years old. Immediately—due to no autopsy insisted upon by the ironclad demand from his wife, Florence Harding, and the fact that his body was embalmed one hour after death—suspicious rumors of foul play circulated. Conspirators came in many forms. Corrupt politicians, scandal cover-ups, quack physicians, and foreign operatives. But the most sinister accusation of all was Harding being intentionally poisoned by his wife.

The official cause of death released in press statements by the attending doctors was a “probable cerebral apoplexy”. In other words, President Harding had a stroke, a fatal brain event. There was no mention of any toxicity through poison nor any suggestion of a chronic cardiac condition, a heart attack.

Harding’s body was returned by train to Washington, DC, lay in state for two days, then was transported again by train to his hometown of Marion, Ohio where he was entombed in a marble crypt. His wife, Florence, died the following year of kidney failure and came to rest beside him. As the years passed, the truth of the Harding Administration emerged. It became known as America’s most scandalous presidency.

Extramarital lovers, illegitimate children, political corruption, cronies, bribes, payoffs, and even suicides emerged that painted a black mark on Harding’s history. The persistent suspicion of cover-up in his death failed to go away. Today, there’s a consensus as to what really happened in Harding’s death. We’ll get to that conclusion but, first, let’s look at who Warren Harding was, how he got to the White House, and how he came to die in that San Francisco hotel room.

Warren Gamaliel Harding was born on November 3rd, 1865—the year the Civil War ended—on his grandfather’s farm near Blooming Grove, Ohio. His father was a small-town physician with a small practice that earned little money. His mother was a devoutly religious homemaker with eight children to care for, including Warren who was the oldest. Harding was an average student but a very strong boy with even stronger work ethic.

Following grade school, Harding attended Ohio Central College graduating in 1882 with a B.S. degree (which grounded him as a later politician). Here he  gained experience editing and publishing the college paper. After college, Harding worked at various jobs such as a barn painter, a railroad laborer, and a horse team driver. It was in Marion, Ohio where Warren Harding got his first business break.

Harding had saved enough money to purchase a failing newspaper in Marion. He parlayed it into a profitable venture in which he wore all hats—reporter, editor, and publisher. These roles allowed Harding to get well connected and form the “Marion Gang” whom he nepotistically took with him through his political career, including placing some of these friends and allies in high-ranking service jobs in the United States federal government. That was to come back and haunt him.

In the late 1880s, Warren Harding met Florence Kling at a community dance. He became smitten with Florence who was the daughter of a banker and Marion’s richest man. Amos Kling did not approve of Warren Harding and warned Florence that Harding “would never amount to anything”. He refused to speak to Harding.

Florence Harding went to work in their newspaper business. She also got active in his political ambitions. “The only things I know are publishing and politics,” Florence was quoted as saying. She was especially good at politics.

History—now one hundred years after Harding’s death—records Harding to be an excellent speaker, very personable with a great memory for people, a driven man, but not too bright. Florence was smart, and she used her intelligence to make connections and pave roads for Harding to travel as he moved up the Ohio political ladder.

Warren Harding served as an Ohio State Senator from 1900 to 1904. From then to 1906 he was the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, and in 1910 he ran as Ohio’s Governor but was defeated. Harding went back to the paper industry but in 1915 he entered federal politics and won a seat as a Senator for the State of Ohio. This opened doors in Washington.

The Republican national convention was deadlocked in the 1920 presidential selection race. Ultimately, the delegates chose Warren Harding as a compromise candidate. He went on to represent the Republicans as a moderate in the November 1920 presidential election. Together with running mate Calvin Coolidge, they won a landslide victory over the Democrats.

Warren G. Harding was inaugurated as the 29th United States President on March 4th, 1921. He ran on the slogan “Return to Normalcy” which fit his leadership style. America was only two years past the end of WWI and the public longed for a return to pre-war normal. The country was in a financial recession with what many Americans thought was unnecessary ties still with foreign countries.

Harding focused on a protectionist America by lowering taxes, increasing foreign tariffs, and getting the country out of the League of Nations process that dynamited Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. In one year after taking off, the country rebounded and began prosperity never seen before. It was the Roaring Twenties.

Warren Harding was a hands-off president. He appointed people he thought he could trust into high office and let them loose to do their jobs. His error was not holding them accountable and, given human nature, even his closest friends began to abuse their positions for personal gain.

Harding’s other error—his vice and weakness—was womanizing, drinking, and gambling. Rumors put him having secret tunnels under the White House where he would smuggle his girls in and ply them with illegal alcohol. (Remember, this era was the start of Prohibition.) Harding’s poker games were legendary as well as a well-known fact that he supported mistresses and had at least one illegitimate daughter. Warren and Florence were childless.

Among the brewing political and criminal crises was what’s known as the Teapot Dome Scandal. This involved an oil-producing region in Wyoming that held reserves set apart for the U.S. Navy. Harding had appointed his close Marion Gang friend, Albert B. Fall, as Secretary of the Interior who oversaw the federal lands at Teapot Dome and had the power to award oil production contracts. Fall pocketed hundreds of thousands of payoff money for preferential treatment. This scandal (among others), which Harding knew about, had the potential to have President Harding impeached.

It was under this stressful black cloud that Warren Harding departed Washington on his “Voyage of Understanding” cross-country train and ship tour in June of 1923. Members of Harding’s staff observed his health rapidly deteriorating. A once vibrant man with the world’s best handshake was notably nervous and privately conferring with advisors about how to diffuse the runaway in the Marion Gang.

“I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends… they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor at night,” Harding said to one aide. To another, “If you knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you for the good of the country and the party expose it publicly, or would you bury it?”

President Harding’s tour took him across the west and up to Alaska. He spoke before hundreds of thousands of common folks in places like St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, Helena, and Spokane. He went to a small Alaskan village called Metlakatla, then did a by-stop in Vancouver, Canada before heading straight for San Francisco and checking into the Palace Hotel with an extensive entourage including the future president Herbert Hoover who was his Secretary of Commerce.

Harding’s health had been going downhill since leaving Washington. The stress of his job and unfolding issues gave him a malady then diagnosed as neurasthenia which is an overly nervous condition where the sufferer is unable to relax. Compounding this condition, including non-recognizing many presenting symptoms of bad physical health, was the president’s personal doctor.

Charles E. Sawyer was part of the Ohio Gang. Sawyer wasn’t a trained physician. He was an odd, self-taught homeopath who prescribed plants and birds and rocks and things (not sure about sand and hills and rings) as substitutes for accepted medical practices. But Sawyer was a likable, down-homey Oh-Hi-Yo officially forehead-stamp-approved by Mrs. Harding who saw Sawyer as a 1920s genuine guru teaching them a better way.

Harding also traveled with a real doctor—Joel T. Boone. Dr. Boone knew Harding was critically ill and telegrammed ahead from Alaska to San Francisco, having two of the country’s leading cardiology specialists standing by. These were Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, the president of the American Medical Society, and Dr. Charles Cooper, the leading cardiac surgeon in the USA.

Dr. Boone knew what was happening.  President Harding was presenting these symptoms:

  • Severe abdominal and thoracic pains as in a crushing weight on the chest
  • Pain radiating down both arms
  • Shortness of breath
  • Dyspnoea at night
  • Nausea
  • Severe bouts of indigestion
  • Off and on fever—chills & sweats
  • Exhaustion after little energetic effort
  • Foul acetonic breath

Dr. Boone knew President Harding was suffering congestive heart failure and likely experienced a series of myocardial infarctions where his enlarged heart muscles were quickly failing. Boone knew Harding’s heart was likely to stop, and that he would suddenly die.

That happened at 7:20 pm on August 2nd, 1923. President Harding was in his hotel suite with his wife and two nurse care aids. Florence was reading a favorable column in the Saturday Evening Post. Harding remarked, “That is good. Go on.”

Florence continued when, with only a shudder and not a sound, the President of the United States stiffened, laid back on the bed, and instantly died.

President Harding’s staff came into the room. That included Herbert Hoover and Doctors Sawyer, Boone, Wilbur, Cooper, and another cardiac expert, Hubert Work. These medical practitioners debated the primary cause of death.

They knew the American public would immediately want to know what happened to their Commander-in-Chief and be assured nothing illegal, conspirator, or dark was behind the president’s sudden and unexpected death—especially when the official reports released to the following press during the Voyage of Understanding assured that Warren Harding was a man fit to competently hold office and guide the nation.

The doctors knew, under the circumstances, that no conclusive cause of death could be established without a complete and thorough autopsy. To this, Florence Harding was fiercely opposed. As Doctor Wilbur put it in his notes written the next day, “We shall never know exactly the immediate cause of President Harding’s death since every effort that was made to secure an autopsy was met with complete and final refusal by Mrs. Harding.”

Knowing that the public must be notified of the president’s death as soon as possible and that they would demand to know what happened—what the true cause of death was—the team of five physicians signed this statement:

Realizing their rush to judgment without medical evidence (and strongly suspecting a myocardial infarction or a heart attack), they released this second statement twenty minutes later:

Stroke of Cerebral Apoplexy. Myocardial Infarction. Let’s look at what these medical terms mean.

So how did the 1923 American public and folks over the last one hundred years go from accepting that President Warren G. Harding died of natural causes to a conspirator suspicion that he was murdered—possibly by his wife?

I think a few reasons. One is the president’s staff poorly handled the president’s health information. One day the president was strong as an ox. The next day he died.

There was no autopsy. His body was embalmed an hour after death. And this was through an ironclad order from the wife, Florence Harding, who knew full well of her husband’s infidelity and unwinding scandals.

Note: I cannot find anything in historical notes to determine if there was a San Francisco coroner having jurisdiction and the authority to hold the body while an independent autopsy was done. Or if any other authorities like the SF police were notified.

The other factor was the collective doctors’ stick handling of the “probable cause of death.” They were aware of the public backlash for knowing how serious the president’s medical condition and the perception of them not being seen to do something about it and prevent his death, but they first wrote it off as an unpredictable and unpreventable stroke, not a preventable heart attack. From Dr. Wilbur’s notes:

“In the aftermath, we were belabored and attacked by the newspapers antagonistic to Harding, and by the cranks, quacks, antivisectionalists, nature healers, the Dr. Albert Abrams electronic-diagnostic group, and many others. We were accused of starving the president, overfeeding him to death, of assisting in slowly poisoning him, and plying him to death with pills and purgatives. We were accused of being abysmally ignorant, stupid and incompetent, and even of malpractice. We were said to have forced our way to Harding’s bedside “through political pull and for political reasons.”

But the craziest theory of them all came from a book written by Gaston B. Means in 1930 titled The Strange Death of President Harding. Means claimed that Florence Harding murdered her presidential husband with poison. Without a shred of evidence, Means suggested two motives. One was because of her husband’s cheating. The other was to save him the embarrassment of the scandals. Gaston Means, by the way, went to jail over a con job in scamming the Charles Lindberg baby homicide case.

One hundred years have passed since United States President Warren G. Harding passed. There’s no doubt Harding had a fatal heart attack. That’s life, but the fallout from living the presidential life sucks. Here are lines from Herbert Hoover while dedicating a memorial to President Harding:

We saw him gradually weaken not only from physical exhaustion but from mental anxiety. Warren Harding had a dim realization that he had been betrayed by a few of the men whom he trusted, by men whom he believed were his devoted friends. That was the tragedy of the life of Warren Harding.

DID JEFFREY EPSTEIN REALLY KILL HIMSELF

On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Edward Epstein—a 66-year-old American mega-millionaire and registered sex offender powerfully connected to presidents and royalty—died in his prison cell at the Special Handling Unit of New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. The coroner ruled the death a suicide but, shortly, the publicly-exposed mass of improprieties surrounding Epstein’s custody control and supervision within the detention facility raised a massive foul play speculation. Many properly wondered, “Did Jeffrey Epstein really kill himself?”

It wasn’t just the crazy conspiracy theorists who wondered if Epstein truly committed suicide. There were just too many suspicious circumstances to ignore. Switches in cellmate placements. Epstein left unchecked for nearly eight hours before his death while under a suicide watch. Security cameras on his cell being disabled. Guards “asleep” at their station. Falsified records. No cell search for contraband. A blatant disregard for prison policies and procedures set in place to prevent such a death. Plus, the horde of high-profile people Epstein had dirt on.

Then, there’s the autopsy review by America’s high-profile forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, who said Epstein’s broken neck bones could not have been caused by a self-inflicted, ligature hanging. In Baden’s opinion (who performed more than 20,000 autopsies in his 45-year career), it was far more likely Epstein was a homicide victim than a suicide statistic.

On June 27, 2023, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), through its Office of the Inspector General (OIG), released a 128-page report on the Jeffrey Epstein in-custody death investigation. Before dissecting the report and reaching a conclusion, let’s review who Jeffrey Epstein was and the facts leading to his sudden and unnatural death.

Putting it bluntly, Jeffrey Epstein was an enormous con man and an extreme pervert. He was born in Brooklyn in 1953 and completed high school with skipped-grades but never sought a college degree. That didn’t stop him from getting a physics and math teacher’s position at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. Epstein was quickly fired for inappropriate behavior towards underage female students.

Epstein reinvented himself as a banker. Given credit where credit is due, Epstein functioned at a near-genius level with figures. He worked his way toward the top of Bear Stearns but was “dismissed” for regulatory violations.

He went on his own, founding International Assets Group which specialized in money recovery for extremely wealthy clients. He once called himself a high-level bounty hunter. Because he excelled at this job, he quickly acquainted himself with some of the richest people in the world as well as those socially and politically elite.

In 1987, Jeffrey Epstein joined Towers Financial Corporation as a “consultant”. By 1993, Towers imploded in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes America had ever seen with over $900 million in today’s value simply gone. Epstein escaped unscratched and went on to an even bigger venture.

He founded J. Epstein & Associates in 1988. Its cover was to manage assets of clients with a minimum of $1 billion net worth—an exclusive club at the least. In 1996, he changed the name to the Financial Trust Company with a new headquarters in the U.S. Virgin Islands tax-shelter haven. Another venture was Liquid Funding Ltd. which was a novel and clever debt-repo service partnered with Bear Stearns that collapsed in the 2008 financial meltdown.

Through these years, Jeffrey Epstein amassed an unknown pot of wealth. Personal properties included a Manhattan mansion, one in Palm Beach, Florida, a New Mexico ranch, and an exotic island getaway called Little Saint James in the Virgin Islands. It was here that some of the sinister sexual seductions with underage girls took place.

Jeffrey Epstein surrounded himself with the elite of the elites. Tarred by the Epstein brush were people like Prince Andrew of the British Royal Family, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro, financial titans like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Rupert Murdoch, and celebrities such as Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, Alex Baldwin, a host of Kennedys, and the beat goes on.

The Epstein sex scandals surfaced in 2005. The Palm Beach conducted a 13-month undercover investigation on Epstein that brought in the FBI because of its international scale. Eventually, sixty young females gave evidence of being sex-trafficked through Jeffrey Epstein, his properties, and his female co-conspirator, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell (who is now serving 20 years for sexual offenses against minors).

One of the sworn allegations was that Epstein had 12-year-old triplet girls flown in from France who he sexually assaulted and had them returned the next day. Other girls came from Brazil, the Soviet Union, and across Europe. These minors were facilitated by Maxwell through her contacts in Jean-Luc Brunel’s MC2 Modeling Agency.

Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach in July 2006 on child abuse charges. These serious allegations were plea-bargained down to one count of procuring a minor and one count of soliciting a prostitute. It was called the “sweetheart deal of the century by the U.S. Attorney General who eventually had the prosecutor fired for agreeing to an Epstein guilty plea resulting in 18 months of open custody.

Meanwhile, Epstein went back to work as a money-maker and a kiddie-diddler. Then the civil suits started, and the criminal investigation continued. He was again arrested by the FBI for sexual offenses against minor girls, this time in New York after returning from Europe. That was on July 6, 2019. He was denied bail and sent to the Special Handling Unit (SHU) at the Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP). Epstein remained there for 35 days until he died on August 10.

To understand what led to Jeffery Epstein’s death, it’s vital to know the chain of events that occurred to allow this to happen. This timeline is clearly laid out in Chapter 3 of the DOJ-OIG report titled Timeline of Key Events. Here is a summary.

September 21-24, 2018 — The FBP at MCC contracts to have their video surveillance system updated from analog to digital recorders.

March 17, 2019 — Resources for video upgrades are temporarily reassigned to other work leaving the recording portion half-finished. Livestream cameras are operational for real-time surveillance but cameras in the Special Handling Unit (SHU), including those near Epstein’s future cell won’t record.

July 2, 2029 — A New York federal grand jury indicts Epstein on child sex trafficking charges. A warrant is issued.

July 6, 2019 — Epstein is arrested at a New Jersey airport as he returns from France. He is incarcerated as a pretrial detainee at MCC. The news stories are viral and he is assigned to the SHU for protection from other inmates.

July 8, 2019 — Epstein is arraigned and pleads not guilty. The MCC Chief Psychologist routinely interviews him and finds no evidence of suicidal thoughts.

July 10, 2019 — Guards report Epstein appears “distraught, sad, and a little confused”. A specific suicide risk assessment is done, and the MCC administration assigns Epstein a suitable cellmate as a safety precaution.

July 11, 2019 — Epstein is re-evaluated as a suicide risk. The psychologist minimizes the potential and orders weekly follow-ups.

July 18, 2019 — A federal judge denies Epstein bail even though he offered a $100 million surety. The judge found Epstein “a danger to the community and a flight risk.”

July 23, 2019 — At 1:21 am, guards hear a commotion coming from Epstein’s cell. Epstein was on the floor, semiconscious, with an orange bedsheet strip around his neck. There are notable skin injuries on Epstein’s neck. The cellmate says he woke up hearing Epstein in distress. Epstein said the cellmate tried to kill him. Epstein is moved to the Psychiatry Unit and placed on a suicide watch, alone in a cell.

July 24, 2019 — Epstein is removed from the suicide watch after another psychiatric assessment but is still left alone in a cell at the Psych Unit.

July 25-29, 2019 — Daily interviews are done. Epstein emphatically denies having suicidal tendencies and states he does not remember how he received injuries to his neck.

July 30, 2019 — Epstein is transferred back to the SHU and placed in a cell visible from the guard station. MCC administration orders that Epstein be assigned a new cellmate. A suitable candidate is found and housed with Epstein.

August 2, 2019 — MCC administration concludes its investigation into the suspected Epstein suicide attempt on July 23 and determined they cannot conclusively categorize it as a suicide attempt.

August 8, 2019 — Epstein has a private meeting with his lawyers and updates his will. The prison staff is not aware of this change.

August 9, 2019 — Epstein’s cellmate is moved out at the request of the U.S. Marshals and taken to an out-of-state facility. Epstein is once again alone.

August 9, 2019 — Over two thousand pages of evidence in proceedings against Ghislaine Maxwell are unsealed. They contain very damaging evidence against Epstein, and they receive international media attention. Epstein meets with his lawyers. He then makes an unauthorized phone call to an unknown person.

August 9, 2019 — The last known bed check on Epstein happens at 10:40 pm.

August 10, 2019 — Guards begin breakfast service at 6:30 am. They find Epstein semi-suspended with his buttocks 2 inches from the floor with his legs straight out. A torn prison sheet is noosed around his neck and tied to the upper bunk ladder. Epson is unresponsive. Resuscitation fails, and he’s taken to the morgue.

August 11, 2019 — The New York City Coroner’s Office autopsies Epstein and rules the death a suicide caused by hanging.

June 27, 2023 — The DOG-OIC report titled Investigation and Review of the Federal Prison’s Custody, Care, and Supervision of Jeffrey Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, New York is released. They concluded there were “numerous and serious failures by MCC New York staff including multiple violations of MCC and BOP policies and procedures” that included falsifying records to cover up the lack of supervision on the night of August 9/10. The report upheld a suicide ruling and made eight recommendations to minimize a re-occurrence of the Jeffrey Epstein event.

—   —   —

That’s the timeline of what led to Epstein’s death. Let’s deal with the highlights before wrapping up with the biggest issue of all—that the autopsy findings allegedly support a homicide ruling over a suicide.

Cell Search — The BOP has a policy of ongoing cell searches to locate contraband or items that an inmate could use to harm themselves or others. The report found no record that Epstein’s cells had ever been searched and that he had an excess of bed linens that he could use to make a hanging ligature.

Cell Checks — The last recorded cell check on Epstein was at 10:40 pm on August 9. He was found at 6:30 on the 10th. Checks are to be made hourly so that’s eight checks in a row that were missed. This is what the two night-shift guards falsify. However, they were caught by their own cameras.

Faulty Cameras — The conspiracy crowd made a lot of media and internet noise over the “disabled” cameras. The DOJ/OIG report takes a deep dive into this issue in Chapter 6. They found nothing intentional had been done to sabotage the cameras. Every camera aimed at Epstein’s cell was in proper working order except they were only on livestream mode. The recorders had never been updated. Typical bureaucratic inefficiency.

The only recorded video, though, was crucial. That was the camera with both Epstein’s cell door and the guard station in the viewfinder. It was clear evidence that no one had gone near Epstein’s cell door from 10:40 pm until 6:30 am. It was also clear that both guards in the recording never moved from their station during the same time. Apparently, they were asleep. Later, they were convicted of falsifying the bed check documents.

The Cellmates — The report does not name either of Epstein’s cellmates, but it does detail every move, the reasons for the move, and the concern the MCC administration staff had about a suitable watch person being with him at all time.

The Previous Suicide Attempt — The report overrules the MCC finding that there wasn’t sufficient evidence of a clear earlier suicide attempt. The OIG investigation notes this was a huge red flag and Epstein’s supervision should have been done accordingly.

The Ghislaine Maxwell Documents — This was the proverbial straw that broke Epstein’s back. He knew his case was hopeless and that he’d be spending the rest of his life in jail. It was now just waiting a suitable moment for him to hang himself. He found it on the night of August 9/10 when he was alone and unsupervised.

The Will and the Call — Both events seem suspicious, but the report lets the BOP and MCC off light here. There is no way prison officials could know what was going on in a meeting between Epstein and his attorneys. And there is no way to know what was said in a 27-minute private call that happened around 9:00 pm on August 9th despite that Epstein was supposed to be under outgoing call monitoring. He was using an unauthorized smuggled smartphone that should have been discovered if he’d ever had a cell search.

—   —   —

So, let’s deal with the autopsy and the controversial broken neck bones. Dr. Kristen Roman, M.D. was the prosector (a person who dissects bodies.) She was a very experienced forensic pathologist employed by the New York City’s Medical Examiner Office. Her report’s final diagnosis is very clear, and the coroner has never deviated from it. Rather than paraphrase it, see the image below

 

The “broken neck bones” referred to by the news media through Dr. Michael Baden (who was hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s brother to second-guess the suicide ruling) are not bones at all—certainly not true neck bones like the thoracic and cervical vertebrae that make up the upper spine. Dr. Roman refers to “fractures of bilateral thyroid cartilage cornuae and left hyoid cornua”. These two anatomical features are soft cartilage in the throat—one supports the tongue, and the other supports the thyroid gland. They are almost always damaged or “fractured” in ligature hangings.

Let’s go to the source of this “broken neck bone” trouble. Dr. Baden gave an interview to Fox News on October 30, 2019. Here’s a Fox News quote from that show. 

Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy is more consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicide, Dr. Michael Baden reveals. 

He noted that the 66-year-old Epstein had two fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, specifically the thyroid cartilage or Adam’s apple, as well as one fracture on the left hyoid bone above the Adam’s apple, Baden told Fox News. 

“Those three fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation,” Baden, who is also a Fox News contributor, said. 

While there’s not enough information to be conclusive yet, the three fractures were “rare,” said Baden, who’s probed cases involving O.J. Simpson, President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, record producer Phil Spector, New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez, and many others. 

“I’ve not seen in 50 years where that occurred in a suicidal hanging case,” the 85-year-old medical legend told Fox News.

There are three things wrong with the Baden/Fox release.

  1. Given credit to Dr. Baden for correctly identifying the hyoid and thyroid cartilages, it was Fox News that sensationalized them as a broken neck. ie – this couldn’t have happened in a suicide hanging so it had to be a murder.
  2. Dr. Baden is out-of-line stating the hyoid and thyroid cartilages fractures are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and are more consistent with manual strangulations.
  3. Dr. Baden infers that he was physically present at the autopsy as an independent observer hired by the Epstein family.

Let’s examine these issues.

Dr. Roman’s autopsy report is very clear. She was the one who examined the body, and her findings are conclusive. She refers to the fractured hyoid and thyroid cartilages and never refers to them as neck bones or a broken neck as in vertebrae fractures. She clearly concludes Epstein hung himself with a torn bedsheet and no one else was directly or indirectly involved in intentionally causing his death.

In Chapter 7 of the OIG report titled Conclusions and Recommendations, the investigators deal with the Baden interview and his statement that fractured hyoid and/or thyroid cartilages rarely occur in suicide ligature suspensions. They interviewed Dr. Roman who contradicted Dr. Baden confirming that these fractures often occur in cases like the Epstein death. She pointed out that the ligature was a wide bedsheet fragment and not a small-diameter cord like the electrical connection on the C-PAC machine found in Epstein’s cell.

Dr. Roman explained the mechanism of the ligature and how the forces worked in this case. Because the fabric and the tied knot were wide, they created an upward furrow that was evident on Epstein’s neck. She stated the force was at the right location and would have exerted sufficient pressure in his suspended position to cause the cartilage fractures—she would have been surprised if the fractures hadn’t occurred.

The pathologist also commented in the OIG report that there was nothing on Epstein’s body to indicate defensive wounds usually seen in violent homicide deaths. There was no bruising except for the ligature location and what’s known as petechiae in the eyes which are small red dots or blood vessel ruptures caused by the circulation interference. Furthermore, there was no debris in his fingernails associated with a fight, and no contusions on his knuckles.

Nowhere in Dr. Roman’s autopsy report and interview with the OIG investigation does she confirm Dr. Baden being at the autopsy. This (in my experience as a homicide investigator and coroner) is highly unlikely. Autopsies, especially forensic autopsies like performed on Jeffery Epstein, are carefully controlled. Only those absolutely necessary may attend.

There would be no value in Baden being there. If he were contracted by the family for a review, he would be supplied with the entire material including photographs, documents, and whatever exhibits had been processed. Baden gave his Fox interview two months after the autopsy. By then, the entire autopsy results would be in and supplied to the family, ergo to Baden.

There’s one more reason that Baden probably wasn’t in that autopsy suite. He’s a publicity-seeking narcissist, and it’s well-known he’s never seen a camera or a mic he didn’t like. Anytime there’s a high-profile death, information processors like Fox News look for sensational sources. Dr. Michael Baden is on their speed dial.

And there’s a credibility issue over the suicide vs homicide conclusion in the Jeffery Epstein postmortem examination. Dr. Kristen Roman received her M.D. in 1999 and was board-certified as a forensic pathologist in 2004. When she autopsied Epstein, she had 15 years of operational experience with the New York Medical Examiner Office as an active prosector. Roman had nothing to gain by not being candid on the Epstein file.

You might want to read this Intelligencer article titled Why You Might Not Want to Believe Michael Baden, Celebrity Pathologist, on Epstein’s Death.

By Jeffrey Epstein committing suicide, he cheated dozens of innocent victims out of justice. It’s a travesty that this travesty developed into the widespread social mockery meme, “… and Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

WHAT REALLY KILLED HANK WILLIAMS SENIOR

They say you haven’t made it in country music until you’ve recorded a piece about a breakup, one about a jukebox, and a tribute to Old Hank. Without question, Hank Williams Senior, the Hillbilly Shakespeare, was one of the most influential people ever to perform in American music. As a singer and songwriter, he left an unmatched legacy. He was also a train wreck in his personal life which was a prime factor in what really killed Hank Williams Senior.

There’s controversy about the circumstances surrounding Hank Williams’s death. It was never investigated by the police but, truthfully, there’s no credible suggestion of foul play and no reason for police involvement. The problem lay with the autopsy and toxicology examination of which no written record is available in the public arena—which is so commonly the case in celebrity passings. There’s also trouble with certain witness evidence regarding where and when Hank died at 29 years old on New Years Day in 1953.

Before we look at the known case facts and reach a conclusion about what really killed Hank Williams Senior, let’s review a history of the man and his music.

Hiram (Hank) Williams was born on September 17, 1923, in the rural community of Mount Olive in Butler County, Alabama. His father was a railroader who was seriously injured and semi-permanently hospitalized leaving young Hank to be raised by his mother. When he was four, the family moved to Georgiana, Alabama, and at ten they settled in Montgomery. From then on, Hank Williams would call Montgomery home.

Hank’s musical talent was evident at an early age. He would sing in the church choir and busk on the street. Probably a dozen people have claimed to have given Hank his first guitar but in Hank’s own words, he bought it himself with money won in a talent show. In Georgiana, he was mentored by a Blues artist named Rufus “Tee Tot” Payne who, according to Hank, was the only music teacher he ever had. All else, from his rhythm guitar prowess to his genius with lyrics, was self-taught.

Hank’s radio debut came at age 13 when he had his own 15-minute live show. At 14 he formed his own band called Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys. By the early 1940s, Hank caught the attention of Nashville music executives. He quit school and took his band on the road with his mother as their manager.

World War II broke up the Drifting Cowboys. All the band members were drafted into military service. All members exact Hank Williams. He was born with a spinal defect termed spina bifida which excused him from the army. The defect caused him lifelong back pain to which he turned to alcohol and painkillers for relief.

In Nashville, Hank met Audrey Sheppard and married her. This produced a son who went on to be a very successful musician on his own—Hank Williams Junior. The marriage quickly dissolved due to Hank Senior’s increasing alcohol use which would seriously affect his career.

Over his short time in the music industry, Hank rightfully earned the name “The Father of Country Music”. He didn’t just change the direction of country—he invented it. His first hit, Move It On Over, was followed by a string of others like Jambalaya, There’s a Tear in My Beer, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Hey Goodlookin’, and Lovesick Blues. In total, Hank Williams recorded 55 singles that reached Billboard’s Top 10 list including 12 that became Number 1 hits. Three Number 1s were released after his death.

Hank William’s back pain increased as he grew older. He had a spinal fusion in 1951 and that only worsened the condition. His alcohol and drug consumption also increased and this led to benders of drunkenness and fits of being totally stoned. As such, his fail-to-show rate at performances became out of control. He was finally banned from playing at the Grand Ole Opry because of chronic drunkenness.

Despite his popularity on the charts, Hank was forced to take second-rate gigs to pay the bills. One show was scheduled for New Years Eve, 1952, in Charleston, West Virginia. Due to an ice storm that prohibited flying, Hank canceled the Charleston show and made driving arrangements to attend a next-day performance in Canton, Ohio.

Williams hired a friend’s son, 17-year-old Charles Carr, to drive Hank’s baby-blue Cadillac convertible from Montgomery to Canton. The pair left Montgomery on the morning of December 31, 1952, under horrible road conditions. Hank rode in the back, stretched out to relieve the pain. He also consumed chloral hydrate capsules as well as an unknown quantity of beer.

When they reached Knoxville, Tennessee, the two took a break at the Andrew Jackson Hotel. Because Hank was inebriated, in deep pain, and relentlessly burping, hiccupping, and complaining of indigestion, Carr called a doctor to examine him. This doctor gave Hank a shot containing morphine and Vitamin B12 to reduce the pain and digestive distress.

They hit the road at about 11 pm, again with Carr driving and Hank in the back. By the time they reached Oak Hill, West Virginia, some 4 hours or 270 miles distant, Carr stopped for gas. He checked on Hank who was lying under a blanket and found him unresponsive, cold, and stiff with rigor mortis already setting in.

Carr then drove Hank’s lifeless body to the Oak Hill hospital where he was officially pronounced dead. The local coroner and mortician, Dr. Ivan Malinin, performed an autopsy on Hank at the Tyree Funeral House. Malinin, a Russian immigrant who barely spoke English, declared the cause of death as being “insufficiency of the left ventricle of (the) heart”.

There’s no available autopsy report on the internet. And there’s no record of any toxicology testing, although some articles refer to there being a sufficient quantity of alcohol being in Hank’s blood. There’s also no documentation on Malinin’s medical qualifications—whether he was an accredited MD in the United States let alone a board-certified pathologist with experience in conducting human autopsies.

The best evidence for drugs and alcohol in Hank William’s system comes from Carr, who observed him drinking beer during the trip, the Knoxville doctor who gave him the morphine injection, and the nearly finished chloral hydrate prescription on Hank’s person. The mixture of morphine, chloral hydrate, and alcohol (ethanol) is known to be deadly and a prime contributor to a fatal heart attack. The indigestion is also symptomatic of an oncoming cardiac event.

From what history has recorded, there’s little doubt that Hank Williams Senior died from cardiac failure/arrest. But that’s not what really killed him. I’ll defer to my days as a coroner and review how coroners determine the actual cause of a person’s death.

Everywhere in the civilized death investigation world, coroners have the same mandate. Once they’ve fulfilled this responsibly, the case is closed and never revisited unless there are extreme circumstances to require a second look. In the Hank Williams case, the findings seem pretty simple. He died from heart failure due to excessive drug and alcohol consumption. But it’s not that simple.

Coroners have a duty obligation to find the deceased’s identity, where they died, when they died, how they died, by what means they died from, and what classification their death falls into.

With Hank Williams, there’s no question about identity. His death location cannot be positively established—it was in the back of a car somewhere on the road between Knoxville and Oak Hill. The time of death is somewhat gray—somewhere between 11 pm on December 31, 1952, and 3 am on January 01, 1953. How Hank died is, in all liklihood, a heart attack or what’s medically known as a myocardial infarction. That’s a very acceptable conclusion.

But what’s not so easy to conclude is by what means Hank died. “By What Means” refers to the root cause or underlying event that brought on the heart attack. For example, a person killed by a bullet to the head would have the cause being massive cerebral interruption and the means being a gunshot wound to the head. In Hank’s case, the cause being the heart attack and the “by what means” being brought on by excessive drugs and alcohol intake or what’s medically known as a poly-pharmacy overdose.

There are five death classifications available to a coroner: Natural, Suicide, Accident, Homicide, and Undetermined. There’s no suggestion that Hank Williams’ death was a suicide or a homicide. Those can be eliminated. This isn’t an undetermined death—his heart suddenly stopped working as the result of too much booze and too many pills. The question becomes whether Hank died from natural causes or if he died as the result of an accidental overdose.

Let’s revisit “By What Means”. It’s not sufficient to stop at concluding it was an overdose-related heart attack. There’s more to the story and the root cause or primary contributing event. Hank Williams Senior was a well-known alcoholic and pain pill popper. There’s gobs of history to support that—overwhelming evidence of his addiction.

Addiction is classified as a mental disease under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Five (DSM-V). Alcoholism is a subcategory of addiction and so is drug abuse whether it’s illegal narcotics or pharmaceutical prescriptions. Today, addiction is generally referred to as substance use disorder or SUD. There’s absolutely no doubt Hank suffered from SUD.

So taking SUD into account, if I were the coroner ruling on the “By What Means” in this case I’d say Hank died from a massive coronary event, antecedent to polypharmacy excess, antecedent to the pre-existing disease of substance abuse disorder. Because a disease is a medical condition, I’d classify the death as a natural event. And I’d also make a comment on what brought on his SUD. Lifestyle and pain.

I’ll end this by saying that a poor lifestyle and chronic pain mismanagement are what really killed Hank Williams Senior.