Earl Rose Pathologist Prevented from Performing Autopsy on US President John F Kennedy
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OBITUARIES Earl Rose Pathologist prevented from performing autopsy on US President John F Kennedy Earl Rose, forensic pathologist (b 1926; q 1953, Not all agree on University of Nebraska), died on 1 May 2012 the details of what from complications of Parkinson’s disease. happened in the On 22 November 1963 Earl Rose was in his office following tense at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas minutes—for when the bad news came. Across the corridor in example, did trauma room 1, doctors (see BMJ 2010;340:c922) Kellerman had lost the short battle to save the life of US truly brandish President John F Kennedy, who less than an hour his firearm to before had suffered severe head wounds from threaten Rose or gunfire. Rose, Dallas County’s medical examiner, did he simply open walked into the corridor, which was full of scur- his suit jacket to rying medical staff, presidential aides, and secret service agents. He had a legal duty to fulfil. Years reveal the gun? later he wrote, “A murder had been committed and But all accounts . an accurate and thorough autopsy was critical agree that the for . the credibility of the investigation.”1 confrontation was heated and loud Last rites Jacqueline Kennedy, the president’s wife, Merrill Overturf, professor of cardiology at the Rose, in the JAMA interview, said, “Finally, remained in trauma room 1 with the body. A University of Texas Medical School at Houston, without saying any more, I simply stood aside. priest was summoned to give the last rites. Rose who first met Rose at Iowa, describes Rose as a I felt that it was unwise to do anything more to was met by the chief secret service agent, Roy Kel- “sterling role model,” adding, “He performed every accelerate or exacerbate the tension. There was lerman, and George Burkley, Kennedy’s personal autopsy with the precision of a watchmaker.” nothing more I could do to keep the body in Dal- physician. They told him that Mrs Kennedy would Rose was born on 23 September 1926 in Eagle las. I had no minions, no armies to enforce the will not leave Dallas without her husband’s body and Butte, South Dakota. In the second world war he of the medical examiner.”2 there was therefore no time for an autopsy. The served on a US Navy submarine in the Pacific thea- body was to be promptly delivered to the Dallas tre. After earning his medical degree in 1953 at the Conspiracy theories airport, where Air Force One was waiting for the University of Nebraska he entered private practice, Late that same evening, an autopsy on Kennedy sad flight to Washington. but in 1956 he began a two year surgical pathol- was performed by military pathologists at Rose responded that under Texas law he was ogy residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Bethesda National Naval Medical Center near required to perform a medicolegal autopsy, stat- Dallas. He then trained in clinical pathology in St Washington. In subsequent years the autopsy was ing firmly that the body would not leave the hos- Louis, Missouri, followed by a forensic pathology reviewed several times and found to be lacking. pital until he had examined it. Not all agree on the fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia in In his unpublished memoir, Dallas: My View of details of what happened in the following tense Richmond, where he was deputy chief medical History, 1963-1968, Rose describes the Bethesda minutes—for example, did Kellerman truly bran- examiner. autopsy as “incomplete and unsatisfactory,” add- dish his firearm to threaten Rose or did he sim- In early 1963 he moved to Dallas to oversee the ing that “it contributed significantly to the conspir- ply open his suit jacket to reveal the gun? But all establishment of a medical examiner system. In acy theories” about Kennedy’s assassination.1 accounts agree that the confrontation was heated his spare time he studied law at Southern Meth- Rose performed autopsies on three key play- and loud. odist University, earning a law degree in 1968. ers in the Kennedy assassination: Lee Harvey The corridor confrontation was first immor- In the 1992 JAMA interview, Rose said that in the Oswald, the lone accused presidential assas- talised in William Manchester’s 1967 bestseller, corridor confrontation Kellerman used three tac- sin; the Dallas police officer J D Tippit, thought The Death of a President. In Manchester’s account, tics: his status as a secret service agent, an appeal to have been gunned down by Oswald; and Jack Rose is portrayed almost comically as a small time for sympathy for Mrs Kennedy, and intimidating Ruby, who gunned down Oswald live on national official trying to act important; a portrayal most body language. The crucial moment in the drama television. now see as unjustified. Indeed, in 1963 Rose was came after the casket holding the president’s body After the unflattering portrayal in Manchester’s a highly trained forensic pathologist and later a had been placed on a gurney and was being rolled book, Rose felt like a pariah among his colleagues respected faculty member of the University of Iowa though the emergency room corridor towards the and received hate mail.1 In 1968 he moved to law and medical schools. exit, with Mrs Kennedy by its side. Iowa, becoming popular with students, and In an interview in 1992 in JAMA, the 188 cm tall Robert Caro, in his book published in May remained silent on the events in Dallas for many Rose said that growing up on the Cheyenne River 2012, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon years. He leaves his wife of 60 years, Marilyn, and Indian Reservation in South Dakota influenced his Johnson, writes that Rose and a policeman were five daughters. His son died before him. actions. “People raised in western South Dakota blocking the exit. Caro asserts that Kennedy Ned Stafford, freelance journalist, Hamburg may lose a fight,” he said, “But they don’t get bul- aides, “had literally shoved the examiner and the References are in the version on bmj.com. 2 lied or intimidated.” policeman aside to get out of the building.” Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4768 BMJ | 28 JULY 2012 | VOLUME 345 33 OBITUARIES and set up one of the first epidural in world wars the family were kept Mary Frances Busby services in a peripheral hospital. He apart but reunited in Canada after served as president of the Yorkshire the hostilities. Jacque returned to Society of Anaesthetists from 1978-9. Vancouver Island in 1968, settling in After retirement he volunteered to the Nanaimo, not far from his birthplace, Ministry of Overseas Development and and joined the staff of the Nanaimo worked in Africa and the Seychelles. regional general hospital, the same Predeceased by Emmie in 2006, he hospital where he died. He leaves his leaves four children. wife, Pamela. in 1939 as a ranker; commissioned Judy Shakespeare Pamela Mar after 18 months she spent the war in Former associate specialist in breast Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4667 Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4671 Gibraltar, where she contracted typhoid. screening Reading (b 1947; q Belfast In convalescence she studied for her 1972; DRCOG, MRCGP), died from Nasnaranpattiyage Don Ian Oswald MB; with the help of a services grant lung cancer on 23 October 2011. and despite parental opposition she Mary Frances Busby was brought up George Leslie won a place at Edinburgh. She worked in Nuneaton but studied medicine at as a general practitioner in the Scottish Queen’s University, Belfast. After house Lowlands but then moved to Kent, where jobs she joined the GP training scheme she spent the next 20 years as a clinical in Leamington Spa and Warwick before medical officer, working for county and accepting a partnership in a practice in local authorities. In 1972 she returned Crawley, Sussex, in 1976. She married to Edinburgh, where she worked until Peter Torrie, who had been in her retirement as a medical officer with the year at Queen’s. In 1984 they moved Former professor of psychiatry Scottish Office. She was predeceased by to Reading when he was appointed Former consultant psychiatrist Edinburgh University (b 1929; both her husbands and her son. consultant radiologist, and Mary worked South Bedfordshire (b 1928: q Caius College, Cambridge, 1950, Peter Sims part time in the breast screening unit, q Sri Lanka 1953), d 1 May 2012. Bristol 1953; MD, DSc), d 25 April Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4669 part of the newly established national Nasnaranpattiyage Don George 2012. screening programme, until her Leslie worked in various government Ian Oswald was one of the few civilians Yvonne Florence Stedman retirement in 2007. Mary underwent hospitals and in general practice in who were given penicillin to combat surgery and chemotherapy without Sri Lanka before moving in 1968 to life threatening septicaemia, which complaint and was able to die at home the UK to train in psychiatry. At the prompted his decision to study with her family around her. She leaves age of 42 he obtained the diploma medicine. After national service he her husband; a son; and a daughter. in psychological medicine and studied at Oxford and gained an MD Mary Crone membership of the Royal College from Cambridge. Honoured with Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4668 of Psychiatrists. He was appointed various scholarships and prizes, he consultant psychiatrist in South worked at Edinburgh University and John “Derrick” Holdsworth Bedfordshire in 1980. He developed the University of Western Australia. a progressive neurological disorder On returning to Edinburgh he became Former consultant in family of uncertain aetiology just before his one of the world’s authorities on the planning and reproductive health retirement.