No Case the Same: Coroner Grapples
With Mystery of Death and its Causes

OAKLAND -- Since Assistant Sheriff Robert J.P. Maginnis took a position at the Alameda County Coroner?s Office, he has probably seen more gruesome imagery than he would like: Dismemberments, decapitations and general carnage are all a part of his daily routine. He also examined corpses literally squashed flat by falling debris during 1989?s Loma Prieta Earthquake.

But for Maginnis, the most shocking case was his first, a memory he said remains with him to this day.

?A woman had tried to flush a full-term fetus down a toilet,? Maginnis said. ?That case was my most unusual.?

Maginnis is a stout, jowly man who bears a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill. He, Lt. Dave Hoig and a staff of some 17 forensic investigators at the Coroner?s Office routinely examine some 4,000 deceased Alameda County residents per year.

Of those 4,000, about 1,100 require autopsies. At a pace of between six and 14 corpses per day, the staff at the office continually hone their specialties: Maintaining the integrity of crime scenes, conducting forensic examinations and performing autopsies comprise their regular routine.

But Maginnis? crew also handles a host of tasks one wouldn?t normally associate with a coroner?s office. They attempt to locate a deceased?s next of kin, for example, and if unsuccessful, they manage the deceased?s estate. If next of kin are nowhere to be found, the coroner provides for burial at Potter?s Field, a cemetery established in 1873 for the burial of anonymous dead and those unable to afford funeral services.

Both Maginnis and Hoig, speaking to students from Berkeley?s School of Journalism, were eager to debunk much of the mythology that surrounds the coroner?s office, myths they believe are largely propagated by television. Prime-time thrillers such as C.S.I. depict crime scene investigations with dramatic flair, in which sculpted forensic pathologists pull corpses from icy drawers so family members can identify the dead.

Not so, said Hoig.

?We mostly use photographs for identification purposes,? he said. ?We rarely use the sliding drawers, or cold boxes, which is the industry term.? Hoig explained that the coroner?s office must be extremely careful when dealing with the public, whether the media or family members come knocking for information. ?We?re bound by law as to what we can reveal,? Hoig said.

Hoig is of average height and build, with thinning sandy-brown hair and a thick moustache not unlike Groucho Marx. He displays what could be a chameleon?s sense of anonymity; curiously, his suit and tie seemed to match the color of his hair, while his purple-checkered shirt blended naturally with the purple and lavender décor of the coroner?s conference room. Possibly, his perennial everyman sensibilities make him a good candidate for doling out bad news to family members and loved ones of the recently deceased.

Hoig said when it comes time to deliver the bad news, he never shrouds the truth in euphemistic dress. Terms like ?He didn?t make it,? or ?She passed away,? invariably lead to more questions, and thus are not a part of the coroner?s lexicon. Company policy is to be as straightforward as possible without seeming brusque.

?We figure we can either elongate the denial stage, or we can shorten it by being direct, but sensitive and honest,? he said.

Maginnis and Hoig have witnessed forensic pathology come to prominence during their terms at the Alameda Coroner?s Office. According to Maginnis, advancements in fingerprinting techniques and DNA sampling have dramatically altered how officials conduct crime scene investigations. A scant ten years ago, the Alameda Coroner?s Office began examining fingerprints using computers. But it was the emergence of DNA testing that provided crime scene investigators with their most valuable tool.

?If I make a fingerprint on a door, it will probably last about seven months,? Hoig said. ?But DNA appears to be much more resilient.? The slightest trace of human hair or tissue, Hoig said, can provide DNA researchers with a biogenetic match that can be tested for twenty years or more.

Hoig led a tour of the coroner?s facilities that ended with a stop in the autopsy room. The large room was a clinical white, rendered sterile by an omnipresence of fluorescent white bulbs that hummed about the ceiling. Six autopsy tables inhabited the room, each one replete with liquid drainage facilities and an audio dictation system.

Near the room?s entrance was a large walk-in freezer. Hoig opened the door, revealing five bodies atop stainless steel gurneys wrapped in white plastic. The room?s sole human touch hung outside this enclave, a sign that read, ?OUR GUESTS DO NOT NEED A NIGHT LIGHT. TURN OFF THE LIGHT WHEN YOU WALK OUT!? with ?PLEASE? tacked on in a smaller font, perhaps as an afterthought.

At the back of the room were two closets used for drying clothing, which would later be bagged up and marked as evidence. In one of the closets hung the clothing of a recent gunshot victim, a Safeway manager shot twice at point blank range while he sat in traffic. A black baseball cap and a pair of neatly folded blue and white boxer shorts sat on the closet?s shelf. On the rack hung a pair of black jean shorts, as well as a white Fat Albert t-shirt, whose smiling namesake and ?Hey, Hey, Hey!? slogan were overshadowed by dollops of blood drying about the shirt?s neck and collar.

Maginnis and Hoig were sensible in their no-nonsense approach to their work. While one man spoke, the other would usually look down, and both seemed predisposed to gestures of gravity: Folded hands were common, as were scratched chins and sunken shoulders.

Despite this, both men said they relied on humor to help them keep their heads straight during the course of their duties. (Maginnis, though deadpan, had an obvious affinity for puns. He interspersed his anecdotes with terms such as ?dead weight,? succumbing to the coroner?s equivalent of a wink and a nudge.)

?You have to be a humorist,? Maginnis said. ?You have to be able to laugh, to laugh at yourself, to laugh at what you see.?

While the thought of laughing at a hideous murder seemed a bit far-fetched, Maginnis said laughter was what allowed him to do his job effectively.

?Humor allows us to separate the gore,? he said. ?To keep it out.?