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The job of a forensic pathologist is multi-faceted. Not only do they perform autopsies, but also find vital forensic proof of how the deceased died. Completing a death investigation, the medical examiner not only identifies the cause of death but will also resolve the manner of death as suicide, homicide, accident, or natural, and sometimes determines what sort of instrument brought about the death.

That isn’t all by far. Many times, the forensic pathologist will find himself in the middle of a legal battle between the defense and prosecution in court like he did in the case of Travis Cooper, the Boy in the Mat.

From the inception of his involvement with the case, Arthur Lyons had always attempted to base any conclusions upon hard scientific data, irrespective of the course others in the investigation chose to follow even when they were at odds with the irrefutable findings of the pathologist.

Often confronted with resistance to accepting scientifically-proven facts, Dr. Lyons found himself challenged racists in the case of The Boy in the Gym Mat when he refused to be influenced by the differences of opinion between the public, the investigators, and the State’s Chief Medical Examiner himself, by the State Prosecutor in the police killing in the Baltimore Rough Ride case, and by the police and press in the highly-questionable handling of the Case of the Phantom Impact.

Follow Dr. Arthur Lyons through some of the most publicized autopsy cases of his time. Would the pressures of top government legal officials break his findings down to suit them even though it wasn’t the truth?

Would public sentiment get the best of him?

Would he find his career being jeopardized for the sake of keeping his bosses happy?

Would science in the courtroom be trumped by a legal system that prioritizes conviction over justice?

 In the determination of cause and manner of deaths in cases that are deemed to be as the result of other than ‘Natural Causes’, the forensic pathologist medical examiner utilized the science of medicine to arrive at the correct answers.

In doing so, however, it isn’t unusual for the doctor to be intimately involved with law enforcement to provide investigative information regarding the circumstances of a death—often critical data needed to make the proper interpretation as to the cause and manner of a death.

Difficulties may arise, however in situations where there is a conflict such as seen in the case of the suspicious Death on the Gold Coast where a questionable ‘suicide’ of the girlfriend of a deputy sheriff is the subject of vigorous backlash from law enforcement after Arthur Lyons determines that the shooting could not have possibly occurred in the manner that had been touted by that same agency in which that deputy was a member.

Similarly, Lyons encountered even more resistance in Death in the Canal, after showing that a police involved incident in the alleged drowning of a young Black man was actually a homicide wherein severe trauma had been inflicted following a somewhat tenuous traffic violation, and the individual actually thrown into that canal.

Subtle homicides often go undetected, as Lyons was to discover in the Angel of Death case, wherein a nurse in an acute care unit of a hospital was actually administering high levels of opiates to patients to hasten their demise—with the rationale of providing a ‘merciful death’ for those individuals.

In this case, Dr. Lyons encountered intense resistance and denial from the hospital administration—intent in squashing any potentially adverse publicity—and the law enforcement personnel intent in protecting their local institution, which wielded considerable political power in the community, from any adversity that might affect their economic contribution to that community.

Follow Dr. Arthur Lyons as he investigates cases which have profound implications to the community, and in the process uncovers some of the forces that are in play to discourage, in many situations, the discovery of the truth.