By Associated Press
February 15, 2004
MEMPHIS - The state has appointed a temporary medical examiner in Shelby County, after
O. C. Smith resigned amid charges of fabricating a bizarre attack on himself.
Thomas Deering, once an assistant examiner in Memphis, will serve as the interim replacement, the state medical examiner said.
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/state/article/0,1406,KNS_348_2655839,00.htmlWhat Happened to Don Wiley?
by Doug Most
From the April 2002 issue.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=80A Harvard professor falls off a bridge and it's ruled an accident. But one question lingers.
Windy up here. Not a place to be late at night. Definitely not a place to stop your car and step outside. Eighteen-wheelers rumble past, and the bridge starts vibrating. One hundred thirty-five feet straight down, the chocolate brown current of the Mississippi River rushes past the concrete supports.
We've been told it was an accident. A renowned Harvard biology professor — at the height of his career, in peak physical condition — slipped or was blown over the railing by a passing rig while visiting Memphis for a conference. The tiniest of clues proved critical in reaching that bizarre conclusion, from a missing button on his dress shirt to the angle at which he fell. Still, the idea of a grown man being blown off a bridge by the gust from a truck sounds far-fetched to say the least. In ruling out murder or suicide, investigators answered every question that came up — except for one. Where was Don Wiley in the four hours before he died? The case is closed, the cops have moved on. But ask if it still gnaws at them, that mysterious gap, and you get a nod and two words: "Oh, yeah."
<SNIP>
He shipped the body to Memphis, to
Dr. O. C. Smith, Shelby County medical examiner.
"This case," Smith says about Don Wiley, "got the presidential treatment."
Nevertheless, he adds, he anticipated skepticism about his ruling that Wiley's death was an accident. "The conspiracy theorists, the kooks, and armchair quarterbacks were going to come out."
One even wrote to the local newspaper, saying: "The public should be outraged that they are considered stupid enough to believe a person would stop on this heavily traveled bridge to examine a small dent and fall over a tall railing into the river." Smith says that's what happened. And he's sticking to it.
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