by Colin Evans
Purely by chance, a few days later, Baden happened to address a meeting of doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital on the functions of the chief medical examiner’s office. The speech passed without incident or comment in the press. Baden thought no more of it and went back to running his department, wholly oblivious to the impact that this half-remembered Lenox Hill speech would later have on his career.
For now, though, he had other things to occupy his mind, and with his probationary period just about expired Baden confidently awaited confirmation. It looked to be a fait accompli when Mayor Koch started canvasing opinion about Baden’s year in office. The district attorneys for Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, and the Bronx all provided glowing testimonials. “Thoroughly professional,” was a typical compliment, followed by, “Public service in so vital an area needs a doctor of high caliber. Dr. Baden is such a man.” The health commissioner, Dr. Reinaldo A. Ferrer, was especially laudatory. In a letter to Koch, written on April 11, he praised Baden for the “remarkable accomplishments” that had improved “the administrative structure and managerial procedures of the office.” On the back of such radiant recommendations, Baden looked a shoo-in. Everyone seemed to be singing in harmony—except one man.
Someone once described Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, as “a good friend and a terrible enemy.” Mayor Koch, who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with Morgenthau for twenty years, could attest to the former, but God help anyone who got on Morgenthau’s wrong side. And in 1979 that included Dr. Michael Baden.
Morgenthau, a political super-heavyweight who carried a knockout punch in either hand, didn’t want the acting CME at any price, and when Koch asked his opinion he unloaded on Baden in a long, vitriolic letter, firing accusations of sloppy record keeping and citing a lack of cooperation. Startlingly, he was joined in this condemnation by none other than Dr. Reinaldo A. Ferrer, who just weeks beforehand had been praising Baden to the skies. The letter, jointly authored by Morgenthau and Ferrer, contained claims that the Manhattan DA’s office was being stymied by OCME incompetence, and they identified three cases that they said had been mishandled. In one of these, the furious Ferrer unleashed a stinging personal attack on Baden, accusing him of reneging on an agreement to alter specific details. Ferrer’s impudence was breathtaking. For the first time in its sixty-year existence, the OCME was being ordered—against the weight of the medical evidence—to change a death certificate.
The background to this disturbing story had begun on DiMaio’s watch. On May 24, 1975, Robert O. Soman, a fifty-seven-year-old electrical engineer, fell to his death from a twelfth-story apartment window. His body was found at 4:30 A.M. in front of 40 West Seventy-seventh Street. The autopsy, performed by Dr. John F. Devlin, found nothing suspicious. Death was due to multiple fractures and internal injuries, stemming from a fall from height. A supplementary report filed with the OCME report showed that the “deceased was under psych. care for short time last fall.” It also noted that Soman’s “last few years has been very depressed. No prior suicide attempts but talked about suicide. Jumped from apt. window. Wife was sleeping at the time. No note found. No medical history.” In light of this information, Devlin had no hesitation in writing “suicide” on the death certificate.
When the family heard this ruling, they became incandescent. Soman’s widow, the children’s author Shirley C. Soman, petitioned to have the verdict changed to accidental. Considering that Soman had to clamber across some chairs to reach the window from which he fell, this didn’t sound likely. But Mrs. Soman was nothing if not stubborn and hired a prestigious firm of lawyers to fight her case. Lurking in the not too distant background of this dispute was a big chunk of money. At the time of his death, Soman was covered by a $150,000 policy with the New York Insurance Company. The company duly paid out the sum insured but refused liability under the policy’s double-indemnity clause, because, as the policy terms quite clearly stated, if Soman killed himself within two years of the policy being effected, this would invalidate the double payout. (At the time of Soman’s death, the policy had been in effect for less than two years.) However, if the death certificate could be changed to accidental, then the double-indemnity clause would apply and New York Life would have to cough up an extra $150,000.
Strong family pressure was exerted on Devlin and DiMaio to change the ruling from suicide to accidental. DiMaio, in a memo dated March 5, 1976, stated that he had reviewed the case and concluded that “there was much more reason to make it ‘Suicide’ than ‘Accidental.’”
But the family kept pressing. And by the time the case came to a final showdown in court, DiMaio had retired and Baden was at the helm. He argued that Devlin had based his ruling on his total evaluation of the circumstances of Soman’s death. Sadly, Devlin was no longer able to defend himself; on the morning of May 29, 1976, while at his weekend cottage on Block Island, Rhode Island, he suffered a massive heart attack and died. He was only fifty-eight years old and had been with the OCME since 1962. Just days before his death, he had testified at the trial of serial killer Calvin Jackson (see chapter 4). At the time of Devlin’s death, Baden had described him as “a man of immense integrity and honesty, with a great concern for justice.” Now, though, it was Baden’s own integrity that was in question, as he fought for his own survival and the independence of his office.
Ferrer accused Baden of being “slow and unresponsive in implementing” an agreement to change the cause of death for Robert Soman. Baden boiled when he heard this. He bitterly denied ever having given such an undertaking. Nor was he about to change his mind about the death certificate. He laid out his reason for the city’s Office of Corporation Counsel: “As Chief Medical Examiner I was legally charged to maintain all records gathered in the course of such investigation—and not to alter them; and that requiring me to affix my signature to a statement which I believed to be incorrect would place me in a severe professional and ethical conflict.” Baden built up a head of steam. “I know of no rule which requires the Medical Examiner to accept medical judgment from lawyers.” Ethically and legally, Baden was unassailable, but he could feel the ice cracking beneath his feet. Five times the hearing to decide this case was scheduled, and five times the city’s lawyers failed to show up in court to defend the suicide verdict. Understandably frustrated by such blatant stonewalling, the judge had no alternative but to award a default judgment to the plaintiffs, and the death certificate was duly altered to show that Robert Soman died accidentally.
This was yet another slap in the face for Baden, and his already considerable woes multiplied exponentially when details of the Morgenthau/Ferrer letter were made public. It contained a litany of allegations, by far the most incendiary of which was that, in one very high profile case, Baden had been guilty of “bad judgment.”
It concerned that meeting at Lenox Hill Hospital. According to Morgenthau, on February 3, during the course of his address, Baden had divulged “details not previously presented in such fashion as to indicate” that Governor Rockefeller “had died during sexual intercourse” [with Megan Marshack]. This was news to the hospital. First, hospital records showed that Baden spoke on February 9, not February 3, as Morgenthau claimed; second, minutes taken at the time failed to record any mention of Rockefeller during Baden’s speech.
When questioned about the incident, Baden did recall answering a question about the issuance of the Rockefeller death certificate, but he vehemently denied having let slip any detail regarding how the former vice president came to be dead on the couch. But Morgenthau reckoned that he had a witness, whom he refused to identify—citing the need to protect him from the possibility of litigation—who claimed to have overheard Baden making some distinctly lewd references to the manner of Rockefeller’s death. In a fifteen-page response, Baden dismissed Morgenthau’s accusations as “a masterpiece of distorted advocacy,” before adding, “Even if these charges were true, which they are not, they would hardly justify removing me.”
Koch had ot
her ideas. Casting aside the recommendations of four district attorneys and that of Dr. Kevin Cahill, the governor’s special assistant for health affairs, who described Baden as “absolutely first rate,” Koch had ears only for Morgenthau. On July 31, 1979, it was announced that Baden had been demoted from the role of acting chief medical examiner and would revert to his previous rank of deputy. It was a terrible humiliation.
Baden’s allies, and there were plenty, rallied to the flag. Robert Tannenbaum, former chief of the Criminal Court Bureau for the Manhattan district attorney, described the ousted CME as “too independent, that’s the only slam on the guy. He cannot be leaned on and he has tremendous integrity. And so in the mentality of the New York establishment, he can’t be trusted.” Further afield, Dr. Cyril Wecht, the coroner for Pittsburgh and a top-rate forensic pathologist, took a straw poll of medical examiners from around the country. “All of them expressed their amazement that something like this could happen to a man of Dr. Baden’s stature,” he said. He blamed Baden’s downfall on “political chicanery or some sort of political vindictiveness.”
There can be little doubt that Morgenthau wanted Baden’s head. And Koch moved fast to fill the void that he had created. Within a week of Baden’s demotion, it was announced that the mayor had offered the job of CME to Dr. Elliott M. Gross, the third-place candidate in the 1976 examination won by DiMaio and runner-up in the competitive exam that had promoted Baden.
Baden’s fifteen-month suzerainty had been predictably tempestuous and startlingly brief. No major city, least of all the homicide capital of America, could afford to lose someone of his outstanding caliber. One thing was certain, though, as 1979 wound down to a close: New York City might have a new chief medical examiner on its payroll, but it had not heard the last of Dr. Michael Baden.
SIX
THE POISONED CHALICE
Dr. Elliot Gross was no stranger to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. And he knew all about Michael Baden. The two men went back a long way. They had been classmates at New York University, both had graduated in the class of ’59, and over the next three decades their careers would intertwine and intersect with regularity. When one considers Gross’s background, then his choice of career should come as no surprise. His father, Dr. Samuel Gross, had been a police surgeon—usually the first investigative medical officer at any crime scene—and it was from him that Gross inherited his passion for forensic medicine. After a spell as chief of the aerospace branch of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, where he was also a captain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, the young New Yorker returned to his home city and joined the OCME in 1966.
At this time, the OCME was unquestionably the finest facility of its kind in the world, both in terms of technological resources and, more especially, personnel. Helpern had forged himself a global reputation, and the OCME was the main beneficiary. Pathology students from all across the United States and even further afield competed for the privilege of studying under “the Chief.” He was a great teacher, in the traditional European mode of mentor and pupil, and by the mid-1960s he had attracted a following of ambitious and brilliant students. Some, of course, were hungrier than others. Gross, like Baden, was ill conditioned for the role of supernumerary, and within a few short years, he had emerged from the pack to become deputy CME in Queens. Then came a sudden and surprising dislocation. He’d always idolized Helpern, and the two had been especially close, so when the older man took Gross to one side and delivered a stark career assessment—either get some administrative experience or get used to sitting on the bench—Gross had taken him at his word. Helpern meant nothing malicious by this advice—it was just a pragmatic assessment of how the promotion game was played. Any forensic pathologist who yearned for high public office, especially in a media goldfish bowl like New York, needed far more than mere medical talent—he or she needed a master’s in the bureaucratic infighting that is an intrinsic part of the modern medical examiner’s job. And that meant getting some executive experience.
Gross heeded Helpern’s advice, and in 1970 he spotted an opening: Connecticut was on the lookout for a chief medical examiner. Gross applied and duly got the job. A huge challenge awaited him. Before his arrival, the state did not even have a forensic pathologist and relied on the facilities of local hospitals for autopsies. Gross was charged with building Connecticut’s forensic science capability from the ground up, and although his dream of a single integrated medico-legal unit would not become a reality until 1987—long after his departure—it was his groundwork that made the ultimate achievement possible. Away from the constant glare of media attention, Gross prospered. He soon found out, though, that while trading New York City for Connecticut might have halved his caseload, it did nothing to dilute the gruesome horror of the crimes he was called upon to investigate.
A particularly harrowing case began on the evening of October 19, 1974, when a harassed out-of-towner parked his car outside the Donna Lee Bakery at 1015 East Street in New Britain and hurried inside to ask directions. Thinking he would only be gone a minute at most, William J. Donahue didn’t bother to switch off his car’s ignition. He would never sit in his car again.
Some time later—at 8:58 P.M.—an anonymous caller contacted the police to report that the bakery lights were on, the doors wide open, and yet the store was apparently empty. Curious and more than a little apprehensive, the caller had peeked through the door to investigate, then withdrew quickly, deciding that this was a task best left to the police.
When patrol officers reached the bakery, they also found the front part of the store empty. Only after threading their way between shelves of rolls and pastries and into the rear did they uncover what one officer later described as a “slaughterhouse.” Wedged between the baking ovens, dough-mixing machines, and storage racks were six bodies, among them the hapless William Donahue. Their injuries were so atrocious that the police would not allow relatives to view the bodies. When Gross performed the autopsies he was able to say that the four men and two women had all been shot in the head at point-blank range. The store owner, John Salerni, had died from a shotgun blast; the others were executed by two pistols, a .45 caliber and a 9 millimeter. All the victims had also been beaten heavily about the head before death. Judging from the ransacked cash register, this bore the hallmarks of a robbery gone horribly wrong.
Later that same evening, two members of a local motorcycle gang swung by a New Britain party, laughing and joking and generally looking pretty pleased with themselves. After a few beers, one of the men, Ronald F. Piskorski, a three-hundred-pound former club bouncer who’d made extra money by wrestling bears in a circus, persuaded a fellow reveler named Christian Noury to drive him to a pond in Berlin on Route 72. After making sure there was no one else around, Piskorski unwound a bandanna from his head, wrapped it around a pistol and some bullets, then threw the bundle into the water. Noury, unsure what was happening but convinced that his own future well-being depended on a high level of personal discretion, clammed up tight.
It took another telephone tip-off to provide the first clue as to the identity of the bakery killers. The woman’s information steered detectives toward one of Piskorski’s cohorts, another biker named Gary B. Schrager. Shrager was almost as big as his hulking confederate, and he and Piskorski were real tight. From the way they talked, Schrager’s wife, Abigail, had no doubt that the two men were mixed up in the bakery murders. When she made the mistake of confronting her husband with her suspicions, he began lashing out with his meaty fists. The beating she received only hardened Abigail’s resolve. After wiping the blood from her bruised and battered face, she called the police.
Just over a month after the killings, Piskorski and Schrager, who had been hiding out in Maine with Piskorski’s sister, were arrested as they crossed the state line back into Connecticut. Schrager decided to talk. His confession, corroborated by a polygraph, revealed that the two men had gone out that night with only robbery in mind. They had targeted t
he bakery because at 8:15 P.M. on a Saturday they had expected it to be quiet, as indeed it was at first. When they entered, the only occupant was fifty-nine-year-old store clerk Helen Giansanti. She was quickly herded into a back room. But then other customers began showing up at the store. Thomas and Anna Dowling came for doughnuts, then William Donahue, looking lost and bewildered. Each was rounded up and shoved into the rear of the store. In a matter of seconds, an intended routine holdup had degenerated into a preview of Dog Day Afternoon. The next person through the front door was John Salerni. In a bitter irony, the last customer turned out to be Schrager’s own uncle, Michael P. Kron. He usually picked up his bread and pastries on a Sunday morning but decided to stop by the night before so that he could sleep late. He, too, was funneled into the back room with the other captives.
According to Schrager, he remained on guard in front of the store, while Piskorski took a hammer and began beating the hostages. Just moments later five shots were fired in quick succession. Piskorski burst back into the front, shouted for Schrager to hand over his shotgun, then retraced his steps. Almost immediately Schrager heard a sixth and final shot. The two bandits then rifled the victims’ pockets, grabbed fistfuls of cash from the register, and fled. For these six lives, Piskorski and Schrager netted approximately just three hundred dollars. At separate trials, both men were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
