Report Finds Troubling History of Forensic Pathologist Used For Hundreds of Yolo County Autopsies

According to their report, Dr. Thomas Gill had “been forced out of a teaching position at an Oregon university, and then fired for inaccurate findings and alcohol abuse by the coroner in Indianapolis.”  Moreover, he had been “demoted for poor performance as a fellow for the Los Angeles County Coroner, [and] he resurfaced at a private autopsy company in Northern California.”

He was hired by Forensic Medical Group, based in Fairfield.  While the focus of their report is work that Dr. Gill performed in Sonoma County, they find that “The private forensics firm has held contracts with 16 Northern California counties to perform autopsies for local agencies. Besides Sonoma County, Gill has conducted death investigations or testified in court cases in Contra Costa, Solano, Marin, Napa, Sutter, Lake and Humboldt counties as a doctor for Forensic Medical Group.”

Most ominously, “He had done more than 800 autopsies during a three-year period in Yolo, Napa and Solano counties alone.”

To their credit, it was a Yolo County Sheriff-Coroner’s official who “learned of the doctor’s history from reporters and barred him from performing its autopsies,” forcing the Forensic Medical Group to cut its ties with Dr. Gill.

California Watch reports, “In a written response to questions, Forensic Medical Group said that after Yolo County’s decision, it no longer had enough cases to justify employing Gill.”

For the purposes of the California Watch, “Gill’s ability to resurrect his career time and again reflects a profound weakness at the center of the U.S. system of death investigation.”

They continue, “A chronic shortage of qualified forensic pathologists allows even questionably competent practitioners to remain employable. The absence of trained practitioners is so acute that many jurisdictions don’t look closely at the doctors they employ. Some of the officials who hired Gill acknowledged they knew about his problems but said they had no other viable options.”

“With no national oversight of forensic pathologists or standards that dictate who can do autopsy work, there is nothing to prevent Gill from resuming his career,” they write.

But it is worse than that.  They report, “Although the California State Bar deemed him incompetent in a 2006 report on the Sonoma case, Gill ruled on more than 1,000 death investigations in eight California counties from 2007 to 2010.”

They further report, “Gill, 67, initially declined requests for interviews for this story. Approached by a reporter at his Fairfield home in December, he would not address specific cases or criticism of his work.”

“I am a qualified forensic pathologist, and I have testified on numerous occasions,” Dr. Gill told the California report.

However, they add that in a written statement, Dr. Gill acknowledged that when he joined the Indianapolis coroner’s office, “I had no formal training in forensic pathology and therefore made mistakes, particularly in pediatric cases where findings tend to be more subtle and complex.”

Dr. Gill pointed out that his autopsy findings have not been contested or reversed since 2007.

Dr. Arnold Josselson, Forensic Medical Group’s vice president, said he had seen Gill’s work firsthand and trusted him. “I’ve observed him doing autopsies, and I think he’s competent,” Josselson said.

But perhaps that is because no one knows the extent of this problem.  The Vanguard has not begun its own investigation into Yolo County just yet, however, from our cursory inspection, though the coroner’s office found out about this problem in December, many of the key figures in Yolo County justice system were unaware of the problem.

This potentially puts into question a number of autopsies performed in Yolo County.

How serious is this matter?  The result of the Sonoma County case highlights the problems.

In late 1999, Sonoma County  Sheriff’s Office investigators responded to the call from a local physician whose wife was dead. He reportedly suspected suicide.  The Sheriff’s Department, according to the report, “did not initially treat Pelfini’s home as a crime scene, police records show, but they ultimately came to suspect Pelfini had killed his wife, Janet.”

Dr. Gill was called into examination and determined that the woman had died from asphyxiation.

Writes the California report, “Gill’s certainty about what caused Janet Pelfini to suffocate prompted her husband’s defense team to worry, said Reynolds, the private investigator hired by Louis Pelfini’s attorney.”

“But Gill’s work on the case had some holes,” they add.

They note a number of holes and that the body was cremated immediately after his autopsy, leaving puzzles for other experts.

“With Pelfini’s case resting primarily on Gill’s conclusions, Reynolds began running the doctor’s name through news archives and calling his former colleagues,” they report.  “When the defense team reported its findings about Gill to prosecutors, however, the state did not re-examine the charges. Instead, they secretly began coaching Gill, arranging for him to meet with a speech therapist to help craft his trial testimony.”

It gets worse for the doctor, because in videotaped sessions, “Gill acknowledged he would have to sidestep flaws in his casework.”

“There are deficiencies in the autopsy,” he acknowledged. “You know we have kind of alluded to that.”

“The tapes also showed Gill and his coach, Jeffrey Harris, trying to downplay his past problems,” they report.

Apparently this coaching session failed, as the defense learned of the coaching sessions, the tapes were ordered to be released to the defense, and the DA dropped all charges.

They report, “The California State Bar investigated the handling of the Pelfini case and suspended the prosecutor from practicing law for four years for his role in suppressing evidence about Gill’s coaching sessions. The bar report devoted several pages to Gill’s errors.”

“Unfortunately,” it concluded, “Dr. Gill was not a competent pathologist.”

What is really unfortunate is that this ruling occurred in 2007 before Dr. Gill performed hundreds more autopsies after Forensic Medical Group rehired Dr. Gill.

In his written statement, “Gill said his work since returning to Forensic Medical Group in 2007 had been above reproach. In addition, the doctor said that county officials in the jurisdictions he served were aware of his background.”

This proved to be untrue, as well, as “several Forensic Medical Group clients say they did not receive this information.”  One of those was Yolo County Deputy Cornoer Robert LaBrash.

“This is an eye-opener for us, to admit humbly,” he told the California Report.  Yolo County subsequently joined Sonoma in demanding that Dr. Gill not be used on its cases.

What does this all mean for Yolo County?  That is what the public needs to find out.  Apparently Robert LaBrash has both known and acted on this information.  But what is troubling is that this information has not seemed to have leaked out more broadly into Yolo County Judicial circles.

How this may impact murder cases in Yolo County or the determination of cause of death in suspicious deaths is something we have not yet been able to deduce.

—David M. Greenwald reporting