Waco Coroner Bungled Later Homicide Case
Thursday September 16, 1:39 AM
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Last Friday, Tarrant County, Texas medical examiner Nizam Peerwani told the Waco Tribune-Herald that it may be time to "reevaluate" some of the autopsies he performed on 23 Branch Davidians who were gunned down during the 51-day seige at Mt. Carmel.
When it comes to the need to reevaluate autopsies, Inside Cover has learned that Dr. Peerwani knows whereof he speaks.
Findings from Peerwani's Waco examinations were used by the Clinton administration to bolster government claims that Mt. Carmel residents were shot at close range -- inside the compound by fellow Davidians -- and not by FBI sharpshooters posted outside.
The administration, along with its mainstream press cohorts, has staunchly maintained for six years that no government agent fired into the Branch Davidian compound on the final day of the Waco siege.
It's too early to say whether Peerwani bungled the Waco autopsies. But in the 1998 death of Tarrant County teen James "J.R." Robinson, the highly paid coroner completely overlooked clear evidence of homicide.
After the 14-year-old disappeared for six days last December, his body turned up in an icy Ft. Worth, Texas creek. Peerwani found no signs of trauma and issued a preliminary finding of "cardiorespiratory arrest", according to a June 7, 1999 Associated Press report.
But three days later, when Robinson was being embalmed at Rev's Funeral Parlor, owner Charles Williams was shocked at the condition of the body.
"This was no accident or heart attack," Williams said. "During the embalming process. ...all of these bruises and injuries surfaced on this child. This was definitely a homicide. No question about it."
In February, Peerwani took a second look at the Robinson case. His revised verdict? Death by blunt force trauma to the head.
Days later, Raymond Krote and Demon Hobbs, both 17, were charged with killing Robinson.
At least one of Peerwani's Branch Davidian autopsies has been challenged by British pathologists, who reexamined the body of Mt. Carmel resident Winston Blake. The second autospy failed to reveal the powder burns Peerwani said he found near Blake's gunshot wound.
The Texas coroner has presided over at least one other high-profile death case, when he autopsied the body of key Whitewater witness James B. McDougal. McDougal's March 8, 1998 prison death was caused by cardiac arrest, according to Peerwani.
But several of McDougal's fellow inmates at the Ft. Worth Prison Medical Center have claimed that guards denied the former Clinton business partner his heart medicine hours before he collapsed and died.
The charge, even if true, has no apparent bearing on Peerwani's role. But this tidbit might.
A reliable source tells Inside Cover that Dr. Peerwani has been a Clinton White House invitee.
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