Terrill Wants Former ME Investigation

Rep. Randy Terrill today called on Governor Henry and Attorney General Drew Edmondson to order an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation inquiry into former Chief Medical Examiner Collie Trant.

The proposed investigation would center on allegations that Trant may have been criminally negligent in the performance of his duties, illegally conducted private contract work on state time, and potentially stole state evidence, Terrill said.

“An OSBI investigation is necessary to determine if Doctor Trant was criminally negligent and has jeopardized several criminal investigations,” said Terrill, a Moore Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on public safety. “There is also reason to believe he may have done work for the state of Louisiana while being paid by Oklahoma taxpayers, and it appears he has a pattern of carrying off evidence, including autopsy tissue samples in Oklahoma. These are serious questions that must be answered.”

The governor and attorney general are the two primary individuals with statutory power to initiate the OSBI investigation, Terrill noted.

During his brief tenure as Oklahoma’s chief medical examiner, Trant conducted 81 autopsies, but completed only nine. Of the remaining 72 autopsies, records for 67 include only photos and incomplete body diagrams – there are no dictation tapes or other detailed notes of any kind that are typically included with autopsy cases.

“Without documentation, the state would have to rely on Collie Trant to reconstruct all his work on these 67 cases from memory – something that other pathologists say is virtually impossible,” Terrill said. “This represents possible criminal negligence and could even endanger several murder investigations. As chief medical examiner, Collie Trant had a heightened duty to act in a responsible, thorough fashion in processing these cases. He obviously failed to meet that standard.”

Trant’s cases involved several high-profile investigations, including the murder of Dwite Allen Morgan, otherwise known as “Bicycle Bob,” a homeless man in Edmond; the death of Carol Faye Daniels, an Anadarko pastor murdered in her church; and the murder of four people and two unborn children in south Oklahoma City last November (including the pregnant Brooke Phillips, a former prostitute made famous on an HBO reality series, although she was not one of the two autopsies Trant performed in that case).

The lack of autopsy documentation led the Office of the Attorney General to send a March 19 request to Trant’s lawyer, stating that a review of case files at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner showed “several items are missing, including, but not limited to: medical records, medical reports, tissue cups, histology slides, histology blocks, autopsy and viewing diagrams, x-rays, physical evidence obtained at the scene of an investigation, and medical supplies.”

The letter from the Office of the Attorney General noted that officials believe Trant has those items in his possession, that those items are state property and “retention of the items is unlawful,” and demanded “their immediate return.”

In a March 23 response letter, Trant’s attorney denied Trant had the items, and then requested several of Trant’s personal items that allegedly remained at the Office of the Medical Examiner, including “a bag containing formalin and a larynx from a homicide case in Louisiana which Dr. Trant has a deposition scheduled for April 7, 2010.”

The request for the Louisiana larynx raised additional red flags for state officials.

“Apparently, Collie Trant transported body parts across state lines, which may be legal if he was acting as a contract consultant – but is likely prima facie evidence that he was doing work for the State of Louisiana on Oklahoma time,” Terrill said.

In addition, in the March 23 letter Trant’s attorney requested access to “all of the emails on Dr. Trant’s OCME email account” and “access to the files and charts on cases Dr. Trant was working on while employed at OCME.”

Terrill said that request could be seen as an effort to regain work product illegally done for Louisiana while Trant was being paid by Oklahoma taxpayers.

“An OSBI forensic analysis and investigation is necessary to determine if any illegal work occurred on state computers or on state time and, if so, allow charges to be filed,” Terrill said.
In addition to missing information from the 67 case files, officials also believe Trant has possession of tissue samples or cassettes taken at autopsy for cases involving Lisa Bolfing and William Lee Brown.

A document from the medical examiner’s Tulsa office shows that Trant was the individual who signed out the missing evidence on Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, indicating both samples were being transported to the agency’s Oklahoma City office.

According to a March 23 e-mail sent by Thomas D. Jordon, chief administrative officer for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, “These cassettes have never been seen again.”

In that same e-mail Jordon wrote that officials at the agency believed Trant possessed missing evidence based in part on “his history with the State of Ohio where I am told that he took all the original case file information. Ohio considered having criminal theft charges filed against him.”

“It appears that Collie Trant has a history of taking tissue samples and other state evidence with him when he leaves a job, going back to Ohio,” Terrill said. “This appears to be an alarming pattern of conduct that must be thoroughly investigated. The taxpayers of Oklahoma deserve answers.”

A March 12 letter sent by the District Attorneys Council to the governor and legislative leaders illustrates the extent of the problem, Terrill noted. In it, Executive Coordinator Suzanne McClain Atwood states that the “credibility” of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is now questioned with potential “far-reaching effects” for the criminal justice system.

In light of the questions surrounding Trant’s work, the Council requested that all 81 autopsies performed by Trant be evaluated independently, which would cost between $2,000 and $10,000 per autopsy.

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