Reform the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office

CHANDA TURNER was shot to death at her home in Paul's Valley on July 12, 2000.  Her boyfriend claimed she shot herself while he slept through the sound of gunfire, then found her outside on the backsteps after she was dead.  Crime scene photos depict blood throughout the inside of the home, including on the mattress he claimed he was asleep on. The mattress had been stripped of sheets; no one asked where they went. There were more signs of clean-up in the bedroom, including a bottle of cleaning solution on the floor. The boyfriend had fresh scratches on his arms, and Chanda was covered in bruises. There were signs of a struggle in the livingroom, including broken furniture.

Despite all these red flags that Chanda did not commit suicide, but actually fought for her life, M.E. Investigator John Miller went to the scene and effectively closed the case by classifying the death a suicide.  No pathologist examined Chanda's body at the time.  Despite repeated requests, the family was denied an autopsy for almost 10 years.  Knowing they would never give up fighting to get justice for their daughter, her parents buried her in a sealed casket inside a sealed crypt to preserve her body for the day when they could finally get an autopsy.

That day came in December 2009.  The family finally got a Court Order, with the assistance of the Cleveland County District Attorney, that finally resulted in an exhumation autopsy.  Both pathologists involved at the autopsy (then-Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Collie Trant, and Colorado Springs Coroner, Dr. Robert Bux) ruled the death a homicide. 

THEN POLITICS, SCANDAL AND CORRUPTION brought the Turner's decade-long battle for justice to a grinding halt. Before Dr. Trant could complete the paperwork changing Chanda's manner of death to homicide, the Board governing the ME's Office fired him, refusing to give an explanation why.  According to his lawyer, it was because he uncovered wrongdoing in the M.E.'s Office and attempted to report it. Dr. Trant has filed a Whistleblower and Wrongful Termination suit (see his Amended Petition and/or follow the suit on OSCN here).  Chanda's case was then to be handled by acting Interim Chief, Eric Duval. But instead of completing Chanda's paperwork, Dr.  Duval quit his post and left the State.  Left in a tailspin, the family asked the Board to explain why they fired Dr. Trant and joined another family asking that he be allowed to complete work on their cases.  Their request to speak at the March 18, 2010 Board Meeting was denied.                        The case was then assigned to Dr. Choi, who advised she could not make out Dr. Trant's abbreviations on the diagrams from Chanda's autopsy.  With no doctors left in charge of the ME's Office, former OSBI head Tom Jordan took over as Chief Administrative Officer (he has also since resigned, and the media subsequently reported he participated in secret meetings with legislators involved in the political corruption investigation now underway).  Jordan called a meeting with the Turner's attorney on March 22, 2010.  At that meeting, it was decided Dr. Bux should prepare a report to assist Dr. Choi in completing the case, since he attended the autopsy pursuant to Oklahoma Court Order, and Choi was neither present nor could she make out the notes. Dr. Bux prepared his report  as requested in April 2010, ruling the death a homicide.                                                                              Dr. Choi completely disregarded all evidence from the autopsy and, after all this family has gone through, closed it with no corrections.  In fact, her report is dated 3/2/10, long before the 3/22/10 meeting with Tom Jordan (see box to right of the post-autopsy "report" which no one even bothered to sign and which still checks "NO" autopsy). The Turners were not even aware of this report when they sued the ME's Office on May 4, 2010. Simultaneously they filed an Open Records Request and were shocked to discover the error-laden 3/2/10"report" months later.                                                                                             The Turners then joined five (5) other Oklahoma families and took their fight to the Capitol steps in a rally held May 27, 2010. 

 New legislation was passed on the same day as the rally that would have given the families a legal mechanism to correct all the mistakes in their cases. Again they had hope, if only briefly.  These families who had worked long and hard gathering signatures for their Petitions Demanding Reform of the ME's Office, and who brought those Petitions to the Capitol during the May 27th rally, were devastated all over again when Governor Henry vetoed the new Bills because they contained a new $80,000.00/year administrative position, allegedly earmarked for a former M.E. secretary who was leaving her seat in the State Senate so a Republican could run for it. This launched a POLITICAL CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION by the Oklahoma County D.A., which is still on-going. Now the legislature is out of session, and the families whom they supposedly "helped" by passage of the now-Vetoed bill are left right where they started: fighting with an ME's Office that is in absolute shambles.

Meanwhile, Chanda Turner's death certificate remains unchanged.

THE CHANDA TURNER REFORM BILL click here to open and print the below Petition:

Get Involved Today!

Are you outraged at the scandal, deceit, corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability at our tax-funded ME's Office?

Then print and sign the CHANDA TURNER REFORM BILL today. Every signature counts!

Special thanks to STATE SENATOR BRYCE MARLATT, who has contacted the Turner family and their attorney and expressed interest in drafting new legislation to REFORM THE M.E.'S OFFICE.

Listen to the Nationally Syndicated CRIMEWIRE ninety (90) minute special on the Oklahoma Medical Examiner's Office, which aired July 25, 2010, here.

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After exhuming their daughter for a long-overdue autopsy in December 2009, the Turners had to force the ME's Office to turn over documents explaining why, when both doctors at autopsy ruled the death a homicide, the Agency continues to refuse to change Chanda's death certificate. 

The documents released by the ME's Office to justify their refusal are shocking:                      New ME Report dated March 2, 2010, but not released until May 2010, ignored the autopsy results all together, and checked "no autopsy" despite also releasing a diagram of the autopsy performed Dec. 09: they check "heavy truck" when no vehicle was involved in this home death; Chanda's date of birth is wrong, her date of death is wrong, the report is unsigned by the physician whose name is stamped on it, and that pathologist hasn't worked there in years!!

Our tax dollars are funding this shocking ineptitude.

Joe and Donna Turner pray that bringing public awareness to the staggeringly deficient quality of work produced by our tax-funded ME's Office will force much-needed change, and prevent other Oklahoma famiies from going through the same nightmare they have been forced to endure. 

Read the Turner's June 9, 2010 Press Release here.  Watch KFOR report, FOX 25 report, and NEWS 9  reports by clicking the links.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Read the July '09 NAME Inspection results that stripped the ME's Office of it's Accreditation here.

Read Dr. Trant's Letter in response to the NAME Inspection here, with his plan for correcting the ME's Office's deficiencies, including changing the policy of NOT conducting autopsies in alleged suicide cases because of the "possibility that homicides have been missed (it is not at all rare that someone who commits murder will try to make the scene look like it was a suicide)." Chief Medical Examiner, July 2009, page 2, item 3.

July 20, 2009 GRAND JURY REPORT on the ME's Office: "... there has either been wllful blindness or gross incompetence on the part of those responsible for administration of the office." (p. 2 of 9)  "Written polices are lacking ... as well as protocol for how investigations or cases should be handled." (p. 5 of 9)  Evidence is improperly stored with no safeguards to prevent cross-contamination. (p. 7 of 9)

Listen to CRIMEWIRE on Blog Talk Radio - Chanda's case is the middle segment beginning at 26:16 to 41:40.

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